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      Turning back from the brink: Detecting an impending regime shift in time to avert it

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          Abstract

          Ecological regime shifts are large, abrupt, long-lasting changes in ecosystems that often have considerable impacts on human economies and societies. Avoiding unintentional regime shifts is widely regarded as desirable, but prediction of ecological regime shifts is notoriously difficult. Recent research indicates that changes in ecological time series (e.g., increased variability and autocorrelation) could potentially serve as early warning indicators of impending shifts. A critical question, however, is whether such indicators provide sufficient warning to adapt management to avert regime shifts. We examine this question using a fisheries model, with regime shifts driven by angling (amenable to rapid reduction) or shoreline development (only gradual restoration is possible). The model represents key features of a broad class of ecological regime shifts. We find that if drivers can only be manipulated gradually management action is needed substantially before a regime shift to avert it; if drivers can be rapidly altered aversive action may be delayed until a shift is underway. Large increases in the indicators only occur once a regime shift is initiated, often too late for management to avert a shift. To improve usefulness in averting regime shifts, we suggest that research focus on defining critical indicator levels rather than detecting change in the indicators. Ideally, critical indicator levels should be related to switches in ecosystem attractors; we present a new spectral density ratio indicator to this end. Averting ecological regime shifts is also dependent on developing policy processes that enable society to respond more rapidly to information about impending regime shifts.

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          Most cited references24

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          Empirical evidence for North Pacific regime shifts in 1977 and 1989

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            Thresholds and breakpoints in ecosystems with a multiplicity of stable states

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              Rising variance: a leading indicator of ecological transition.

              Regime shifts are substantial, long-lasting reorganizations of complex systems, such as ecosystems. Large ecosystem changes such as eutrophication, shifts among vegetation types, degradation of coral reefs and regional climate change often come as surprises because we lack leading indicators for regime shifts. Increases in variability of ecosystems have been suggested to foreshadow ecological regime shifts. However, it may be difficult to discern variability due to impending regime shift from that of exogenous drivers that affect the ecosystem. We addressed this problem using a model of lake eutrophication. Lakes are subject to fluctuations in recycling associated with regime shifts, as well as fluctuating nutrient inputs. Despite the complications of noisy inputs, increasing variability of lake-water phosphorus was discernible prior to the shift to eutrophic conditions. Simulations show that rising standard deviation (SD) could signal impending shifts about a decade in advance. The rising SD was detected by studying variability around predictions of a simple time-series model, and did not depend on detailed knowledge of the actual ecosystem dynamics.
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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
                PNAS
                Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
                0027-8424
                1091-6490
                January 20 2009
                January 20 2009
                January 05 2009
                : 106
                : 3
                : 826-831
                Article
                10.1073/pnas.0811729106
                2630060
                19124774
                60d2ab7a-59c7-4287-8630-34fc0a3aefd2
                © 2009

                http://www.pnas.org/site/misc/userlicense.xhtml

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