Resilience loss

Ecosystems are showing symptoms of resilience loss

Regime shifts are large, abrupt and persistence critical transitions in the function and structure of (eco)systems

Regime shifts are large, abrupt and persistence critical transitions in the function and structure of (eco)systems

Regime shifts are large, abrupt and persistence critical transitions in the function and structure of (eco)systems

Depends on our ability to observe and measure resilience

Terrestrial:
- Gross primary productivity (2001:2018)
- Ecosystem respiration (2001:2018)
- Leaf area index (1994:2017)
Marine:
- Chlorophyll A (1998:2018)
>1M pixels, weekly obs, 0.25 degree grid resolution

The generic resilience indicators do not necessarily align with critical slowing down or speeding up theories

In the absence of ground truth, if \(\Delta\) is > 95% or < 5% of the distribution is considered a signal of resilience loss

Gross primary productivity

~30% of ecosystem show symptoms of resilience loss, boreal forest and tundra particularly strong signals

Chlorophyll A

~25% of ecosystem show symptoms of resilience loss, Easter Indo-Pacific and Tropical Eastern Pacific Oceans particularly strong signals

Robustness tests: permutations, auto-regressive models

Limitations: fail when dynamics are driven by stochastic processes or when signals have too much noise

Terrestrial ecosystem respiration

~30% of ecosystem show symptoms of resilience loss, boreal forest and tundra particularly strong signals