Relation between stability and resilience determines the performance of early warning signals under different environmental drivers.

ABSTRACT: Shifting patterns of temporal fluctuations have been found to signal critical transitions in a variety of systems, from ecological communities to human physiology. However, failure of these early warning signals in some systems calls for a better understanding of their limitations. In particular, little is known about the generality of early warning signals in different deteriorating environments. In this study, we characterized how multiple environmental drivers influence the dynamics of laboratory yeast populations, which was previously shown to display alternative stable states [Dai et al., Science, 2012]. We observed that both the coefficient of variation and autocorrelation increased before population collapse in two slowly deteriorating environments, one with a rising death rate and

SUBMITTER: Dai L 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4538670 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature