Ecological resilience feature
A Biology Letters special issue written by members of PAGES' former working group Resistance, Recovery and Resilience in Long-term Ecological Systems (EcoRe3) is now complete.
"Ecological resilience: from theory to empirical observations using long-term datasets" is a collection of nine papers, and an editorial, which build on previous work in paleoecology to investigate, identify, and compare components of ecosystem resilience on centennial to millennial timescales.
These papers demonstrate the importance of using long-term ecological records for addressing questions related to the theoretical framework provided by ecological resilience.
Four key messages can be summarized from the papers' findings: (i) multi-proxy studies reveal insights into the presence and mechanisms of alternative states; (ii) transitions between alternative states may not necessarily be abrupt; (iii) components of ecological resilience can be identified in long-term ecological data; and (iv) the paleoecological record can also provide insights into factors influencing the resilience of ecosystem functioning.