Effects of interactions between anthropogenic stressors and recurring perturbations on ecosystem resilience and collapse.

ABSTRACT: Insights into declines in ecosystem resilience and their causes and effects can inform preemptive action to avoid ecosystem collapse and loss of biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human well-being. Empirical studies of ecosystem collapse are rare and hampered by ecosystem complexity, nonlinear and lagged responses, and interactions across scales. We investigated how an anthropogenic stressor could diminish ecosystem resilience to a recurring perturbation by altering a critical ecosystem driver. We studied groundwater-dependent, peat-accumulating, fire-prone wetlands known as upland swamps in southeastern Australia. We hypothesized that underground mining (stressor) reduces resilience of these wetlands to landscape fires (perturbation) by diminishing groundwater, a key ecosystem driver.

SUBMITTER: Keith DA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10100014 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature