TY - JOUR
T1 - The Resilience and Resistance of an Ecosystem to a Collapse of Diversity
AU - Downing, A.S.
AU - Van Nes, E.H.
AU - Mooij, W.M.
AU - Scheffer, M.
N1 - Reporting year: 2013
Metis note: z.nr invoer 2013; AqE
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - Diversity is expected to increase the resilience of ecosystems. Nevertheless, highly diverse ecosystems have collapsed, as did Lake Victoria's ecosystem of cichlids or Caribbean coral reefs. We try to gain insight to this paradox, by analyzing a simple model of a diverse community where each competing species inflicts a small mortality pressure on an introduced predator. High diversity strengthens this feedback and prevents invasion of the introduced predator. After a gradual loss of native species, the introduced predator can escape control and the system collapses into a contrasting, invaded, low-diversity state. Importantly, we find that a diverse system that has high complementarity gains in resilience, whereas a diverse system with high functional redundancy gains in resistance. Loss of resilience can display early-warning signals of a collapse, but loss of resistance not. Our results emphasize the need for multiple approaches to studying the functioning of ecosystems, as managing an ecosystem requires understanding not only the threats it is vulnerable to but also pressures it appears resistant to. [KEYWORDS: LAKE VICTORIA STABLE STATES
AB - Diversity is expected to increase the resilience of ecosystems. Nevertheless, highly diverse ecosystems have collapsed, as did Lake Victoria's ecosystem of cichlids or Caribbean coral reefs. We try to gain insight to this paradox, by analyzing a simple model of a diverse community where each competing species inflicts a small mortality pressure on an introduced predator. High diversity strengthens this feedback and prevents invasion of the introduced predator. After a gradual loss of native species, the introduced predator can escape control and the system collapses into a contrasting, invaded, low-diversity state. Importantly, we find that a diverse system that has high complementarity gains in resilience, whereas a diverse system with high functional redundancy gains in resistance. Loss of resilience can display early-warning signals of a collapse, but loss of resistance not. Our results emphasize the need for multiple approaches to studying the functioning of ecosystems, as managing an ecosystem requires understanding not only the threats it is vulnerable to but also pressures it appears resistant to. [KEYWORDS: LAKE VICTORIA STABLE STATES
KW - national
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0046135
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0046135
M3 - Article
SN - 1932-6203
VL - 7
JO - PLoS One
JF - PLoS One
IS - 9
M1 - e46135
ER -