Stochastic disturbance regimes alter patterns of ecosystem variability and recovery.

ABSTRACT: Altered ecosystem variability is an important ecological response to disturbance yet understanding of how various attributes of disturbance regimes affect ecosystem variability is limited. To improve the framework for understanding the disturbance regime attributes that affect ecosystem variability, we examine how the introduction of stochasticity to disturbance parameters (frequency, severity and extent) alters simulated recovery when compared to deterministic outcomes from a spatially explicit simulation model. We also examine the agreement between results from empirical studies and deterministic and stochastic configurations of the model. We find that stochasticity in disturbance frequency and spatial extent leads to the greatest increase in the variance of simulated dynamics, although

SUBMITTER: Fraterrigo JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7062255 | biostudies-literature | 2020

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature