Critical slowing down as early warning for the onset of collapse in mutualistic communities.

ABSTRACT: Tipping points are crossed when small changes in external conditions cause abrupt unexpected responses in the current state of a system. In the case of ecological communities under stress, the risk of approaching a tipping point is unknown, but its stakes are high. Here, we test recently developed critical slowing-down indicators as early-warning signals for detecting the proximity to a potential tipping point in structurally complex ecological communities. We use the structure of 79 empirical mutualistic networks to simulate a scenario of gradual environmental change that leads to an abrupt first extinction event followed by a sequence of species losses until the point of complete community collapse. We find that critical slowing-down indicators derived from time series of biomasses measu

SUBMITTER: Dakos V 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4267327 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature