Ecosystem resilience

Conclusion relative importance of stresses and extremes to ecosystem resilience... 

The increasing world population exerts massive pressure on the often fragile ecosystems and land resources of the Tropics and Subtropics. This situation leads to resource overuse, such as excessive deforestation, overgrazing, overextraction of nutrients, and other types of agricultural mismanagement. These frequently manifest themselves in various forms of soil degradation, which are accelerated by the low ecosystem resiliency common in the Tropics and Subtropics. Responsible for this fragility are mainly the climatic conditions of past and present and the processes that dominated soil development. 

There is inadequate robust evidence on ecosystem resilience, indicating that precautions are justified in avoiding both ecological and societal tipping points. 

Biological properties Organic matter is a source of nutrients to plants, due to its cation-exchange capacity it provides metabolic energy for soil biological processes (e.g., bacterial) and contributes to ecosystem resilience, because it enhances the ecosystem s ability to recover from natural or anthropogenic perturbations. 

Asprone, D., Cavallaro, M., Latora, V., Manfredi, G., Nicosia, V. City ecosystem resilience analysis in case of disasters. In Computer Aided Civil Infrastructure Engineering (2013) (submitted)... 

City resilience Community resilience Disaster resilience Ecosystem resilience Engineering resilience Urban resilience... 

Carpenter S, Walker B, Anderies JM, Abel N (2001) From metaphor to measurement resilience of what to what Ecosystems (N Y, Print) 4(8) 765-781 Cavallaro M, Asprone D, Latora V, Manfredi G, Nicosia V (2014) City ecosystem resilience analysis in case of disasters. Comput-Aided Civ Infr truct Eng 29(8) 608-625... 

This agricultural ecosystem clearly suffered a permanent productivity reduction in response to the hurricane, but a reduction which was amplified with time and resulted from a loss of photosynthetic material. However the system was sufficiently resilient to recover from the applied stress. 

Mineralization and immobilization in the rhizosphere are processes that are probably suitable to enable us to estimate ecosystem performance—e.g., productivity, stability, resilience. To properly answer this question, we should understand how differences in plant species may affect below-ground subsystems and what is the functional significance of diversity of. soil organisms. 

Further, Gleissman (2001), Odum (1984), Conway (1985), and Altieri (1995) observed differences between two types of farming systems and one natural ecosystem. Table 11.1 shows that sustainable farming systems have high diversity, resilience, and the autonomy of natural ecosystems, while unsustainable farming systems or conventional agroecosystems provide relatively lower and more variable crop production. Lower crop production is usually caused by reduction in external inputs and adverse environmental impacts. 

Steneck RS, Graham MH, Bourque BJ, Corbett D, Erlandson JM, Estes JA, Tegner MJ (2002) Kelp forest ecosystems biodiversity, stability, resilience and future. Environ Conserv 29 436-459 Strauss SY, Rudgers JA, Lau JA, Irwin RE (2002) Direct and ecological costs of resistance to herbivory. Trends Ecol Evol 17 278-284... 

Smith, W. H. Air Pollution Effects on the Quality and Resilience of the Forest Ecosystem. Paper Presented at the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) Symposium on Temperate Climate Forestry and the Forest Ecosystem An Environmental Issue Held in Washington, D.C., 1972. 

J. H. (2003) Limited functional redundancy in high diversity systems resilience and ecosystem function on coral reefs. Ecol Lett, 6, 281-285. 

More generally, our studies offer an example of the value of direct microcalorimetry in studying homeostatic properties of ecosystems. Here, heat dissipation with respect to seasons is an adequate parameter of the ability of the system to return, after transitory oscillations, to a new steady state (a parameter of ecological "resilience"). 

Ecological key(stone) species are species that play a major role in ecosystem performance, productivity, stability, and resilience. These species may also play an important role in ecosystem function (see below) and include 1) species that are critical determinants in trophic cascades, such as piscivorous fish and large herbivores and 2) species that are ecological engineers, that is, those that have a large influence on the physical properties of habitats such as rooted submerged macrophytes and beavers... 

Extrapolation between structure and function is an area in ecotoxicology that is not well understood. At the ecosystem level, current protective regulations often rely on the functional redundancy concept, applied in conjunction with results from species-poor model systems with high resilience. Evidence from recent studies in ecology suggests that functional redundancy exists within natural communities, but the relative contribution of different species to specific functions is far from equal, and the disappearance of certain species, such as dominant species or keystone species, can have large effects on overall system function and the occurrence of other species. 

Carpenter, S. Walker, B. Anderies, J. and N. Abel. (2001) From metaphor to measurement Resilience of what to what - Ecosystems 4, 765-781. 

Soil Quality Standards are developed for different purposes (e.g., different land uses and different protection goals) since soils are variable by nature and have various uses and functions that may influence the protection goals. Nevertheless, a minimum level of protection or a base level is needed to guarantee resilience of the soil ecosystem, and this should be incorporated into all approaches to soil standards. Standards can be derived that indicate the presence or absence of certain data. 

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