Nonlinear thinking in ecology and evolution: applying the threshold elemental ratio across levels of ecological organization.

ABSTRACT: Nonlinear dynamics govern ecological processes; thus, understanding thresholds is important for measuring and forecasting the effects of climate change and management of natural resources. However, identifying whether and how such thresholds transfer across ecological levels of organization remains challenging. We argue for a broadening of a foundational organismal concept from ecological stoichiometry theory, the threshold elemental ratio (TER), to study how nonlinear dynamics driven by shifts in limitation operate in evolutionary and ecological processes from organisms to ecosystems. Traditionally, TERs are used to describe the elemental ratio at which the limitation of organismal growth shifts from one element to another. Building on this definition, we make a case for broadening the TE

SUBMITTER: Tumolo BB 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12686070 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature