Quantifying the relevance of alternative stable states in many-species food webs

Karatayev, Vadim A.; Baskett, Marissa L.; Nes, Egbert H. van

doi:10.1101/2020.11.27.401711

Cited by 2 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 70 publications

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“…Moreover, and across the studied models, abrupt shift signatures only emerge under overwhelmingly positive interactions, which does not coincide with natural evidence of catastrophic transitions. This further stresses the need to understand the pivotal role of non-random network structures in explaining community-scale catastrophic shifts in nature [77; 78].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A taxonomy of multiple stable states in complex ecological communities

Aguadé-Gorgorió,

Arnoldi,

Barbier

et al. 2023

Preprint

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Many natural and man-made systems, from financial markets to ecosystems or the human brain, are built from multiple interconnected units. This complex high-dimensionality hinders our capacity to understand and predict the dynamics, functioning and fragility of these systems. One fragility scenario, particularly relevant to ecological communities of interacting species, concerns so-called regime shifts: abrupt and unexpected transitions from healthy, species-rich communities towards states of degraded ecosystem function and services. The accepted explanation for these shifts is that they arise as abrupt transitions between alternative stable states: multiple stable configurations of a system under the same internal and external conditions. These alternative states are well-understood in low-dimensional systems, but how they upscale with system complexity remains a debated question. In the present work we investigate the emergence of multiple stable states in a number of complex system models. We find that high-dimensional models with random interactions can unfold at least four different regimes of multistability, each emerging under a specific interaction scheme. More importantly, each multistability regime leaves a distinct and quantifiable fingerprint, providing a framework to analyze experimental evidence of abrupt shifts. By bridging previous results and studying multistability regimes, their fingerprints and their correlation with empirical evidence in ecology, our study helps define a common ground to understand and classify multiple stable states in complex systems.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A taxonomy of multiple stable states in complex ecological communities

Aguadé-Gorgorió,

Arnoldi,

Barbier

et al. 2023

Preprint

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“…To investigate the mechanisms leading to alternative stable states in ecological networks, Karatayev et al [19] studied a multispecies model of consumer-resource interactions with different types of feedbacks: specialized (species-specific feedbacks that occur between a given pair of species) or aggregate (which do not depend on the identity of the species).…”

Section: (C) Hints On Underlying Mechanismsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In other words, theoretical work on catastrophic shifts has so far largely focused on species-poor systems [3,10,[13][14][15]17] or on species-rich systems in which species interact with each other with a single interaction type (e.g. feeding or pollination) [18,19]. Furthermore, the vast majority of work has focused on isolated systems ignoring the spatial structure of the landscapes in which ecosystems are embedded.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scaling up our understanding of tipping points

Kéfi

Saade

Berlow

et al. 2022

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

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Anthropogenic activities are increasingly affecting ecosystems across the globe. Meanwhile, empirical and theoretical evidence suggest that natural systems can exhibit abrupt collapses in response to incremental increases in the stressors, sometimes with dramatic ecological and economic consequences. These catastrophic shifts are faster and larger than expected from the changes in the stressors and happen once a tipping point is crossed. The primary mechanisms that drive ecosystem responses to perturbations lie in their architecture of relationships, i.e. how species interact with each other and with the physical environment and the spatial structure of the environment. Nonetheless, existing theoretical work on catastrophic shifts has so far largely focused on relatively simple systems that have either few species and/or no spatial structure. This work has laid a critical foundation for understanding how abrupt responses to incremental stressors are possible, but it remains difficult to predict (let alone manage) where or when they are most likely to occur in more complex real-world settings. Here, we discuss how scaling up our investigations of catastrophic shifts from simple to more complex—species rich and spatially structured—systems could contribute to expanding our understanding of how nature works and improve our ability to anticipate the effects of global change on ecological systems. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Ecological complexity and the biosphere: the next 30 years’.

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Quantifying the relevance of alternative stable states in many-species food webs

Cited by 2 publications

References 70 publications

A taxonomy of multiple stable states in complex ecological communities

A taxonomy of multiple stable states in complex ecological communities

Scaling up our understanding of tipping points

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