Environmental management in coastal ecosystems has been challenged by the complex
cumulative effects that occur when many small issues result in large ecological shifts …

Understanding stability—whether a community will eventually return to its original state after
a perturbation—is a major focus in the study of various complex systems, particularly …

Global warming, habitat loss and overexploitation of limited resources are leading to
alarming biodiversity declines. Ecosystems are complex adaptive systems that display …

An ecosystem shifts to an alternative stable state when a threshold of accumulated pressure
(ie direct impact of environmental change or human activities) is exceeded. Detecting this …

Natural systems are built from multiple interconnected units, making their dynamics,
functioning and fragility notoriously hard to predict. A fragility scenario of particular relevance …

Within communities, species are wrapped in a set of feedbacks with each other and with
their environment. When such feedbacks are strong enough they can generate alternative …

Thresholds and tipping points are frequently used concepts to address the risks of global
change pressures and their mitigation. It is tempting to also consider them to understand …

Traditional hazard risk analysis methods have historically encouraged single-hazard
resilience, yet complex events often precipitate systemic risks, surpassing established …

On dryland hillslopes, vegetation water availability is often subsidized by the redistribution of
rainfall runoff from bare soil (sources) to vegetation patches (sinks). In regions where rainfall …

Real systems showing regime shifts, such as ecosystems, are often composed of many
dynamical elements interacting on a network. Various early warning signals have been …