Perspectives for ecosystem management based on ecosystem resilience and ecological thresholds against multiple and stochastic disturbances
Perspectives for ecosystem management based on ecosystem resilience and ecological thresholds against multiple and stochastic disturbances
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DOI：
10.1016/j.ecolind.2015.05.019
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发表时间：
2015-10
影响因子：
6.9
通讯作者：
Takehiro Sasaki;Takuya Furukawa;Y. Iwasaki;M. Seto;A. Mori
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
Takehiro Sasaki;Takuya Furukawa;Y. Iwasaki;M. Seto;A. Mori
生态系统复原力是在经历状态变化时吸收各种干扰和重组以维持关键功能的固有能力。当生态系统的恢复力因干扰而充分降低时，生态系统面临从理想状态转变为不良状态的高风险。生态阈值代表了即使与干扰相关的环境条件发生微小变化也会导致生态系统状态切换的点。越来越多的经验证据表明，各种生态系统中的人为干扰引起了这种状态转变。然而，很少有研究涉及人为干扰和自然干扰的相互作用，这些相互作用常常迫使生态系统跨越仅靠人为干扰或自然干扰无法达到的阈值。这一事实凸显了人们对多重随机扰动的不确定性下的生态系统动态知之甚少。在这里，我们提出了两种观点，为生态系统的管理和保护提供预测性科学基础，以应对多重随机干扰。第一个是管理可预测的人为干扰，以维持足够水平的生物多样性，从而确保生态系统的复原力（即基于复原力的管理）。一些生物多样性要素似乎赋予生态系统复原力，例如功能冗余、响应多样性、优势物种、基础物种或关键物种。最大的研究挑战是确定生物多样性的关键要素，赋予每种环境的生态系统复原力，并研究我们如何管理和保护它们。第二个是沿着现有或实验干扰梯度确定生态阈值。这将有助于制定接近阈值的指标以及对阈值机制的理解。预警指标的实施至关重要，特别是当基于复原力的管理失败时。因此，沿着扰动梯度检测生态阈值的能力对于建立防止跨越阈值的后挡板至关重要。这些观点可以让我们超越简单地援引保护生物多样性的预防原则，转向预测科学，为应对不断变化的世界中的不确定性和生态意外提供实际的解决方案。
Ecosystem resilience is the inherent ability to absorb various disturbances and reorganize while undergoing state changes to maintain critical functions. When ecosystem resilience is sufficiently degraded by disturbances, ecosystem is exposed at high risk of shifting from a desirable state to an undesirable state. Ecological thresholds represent the points where even small changes in environmental conditions associated with disturbances lead to switch between ecosystem states. There is a growing body of empirical evidence for such state transitions caused by anthropogenic disturbances in a variety of ecosystems. However, fewer studies addressed the interaction of anthropogenic and natural disturbances that often force an ecosystem to cross a threshold which an anthropogenic disturbance or a natural disturbance alone would not have achieved. This fact highlights how little is known about ecosystem dynamics under uncertainties around multiple and stochastic disturbances. Here, we present two perspectives for providing a predictive scientific basis to the management and conservation of ecosystems against multiple and stochastic disturbances. The first is management of predictable anthropogenic disturbances to maintain a sufficient level of biodiversity for ensuring ecosystem resilience (i.e., resilience-based management). Several biological diversity elements appear to confer ecosystem resilience, such as functional redundancy, response diversity, a dominant species, a foundation species, or a keystone species. The greatest research challenge is to identify key elements of biodiversity conferring ecosystem resilience for each context and to examine how we can manage and conserve them. The second is the identification of ecological thresholds along existing or experimental disturbance gradients. This will facilitate the development of indicators of proximity to thresholds as well as the understanding of threshold mechanisms. The implementation of forewarning indicators will be critical particularly when resilience-based management fails. The ability to detect an ecological threshold along disturbance gradients should therefore be essential to establish a backstop for preventing the threshold from being crossed. These perspectives can take us beyond simply invoking the precautionary principle of conserving biodiversity to a predictive science that informs practical solutions to cope with uncertainties and ecological surprises in a changing world.