Exit time as a measure of ecological resilience




Arani Babak M.S., Carpenter Stephen R., Lahti Leo, Van Nes Egbert H., Scheffer Marten

PublisherAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science

2021

Science

Science

eaay4895

372

6547

1095-9203

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1126/science.aay4895

http://library.wur.nl/WebQuery/wurpubs/fulltext/549502



Abstract

Ecological resilience is the magnitude of the largest perturbation from which a system can still recover to its original state. However, a transition into another state may often be invoked by a series of minor synergistic perturbations rather than a single big one. We show how resilience can be estimated in terms of average life expectancy, accounting for this natural regime of variability. We use time series to fit a model that captures the stochastic as well as the deterministic components. The model is then used to estimate the mean exit time from the basin of attraction. This approach offers a fresh angle to anticipating the chance of a critical transition at a time when high-resolution time series are becoming increasingly available.



Last updated on 2024-26-11 at 14:28