What (and When) is the Point of No Return? | Ecological Monographs

How—and when—do ecosystems change character? Are those shifts reversible? And what signs might precede them? Such questions are hard enough to answer in a single place. One might think that incorporating different kinds of ecosystems would only complicate the problem. But a group of scientists in the Long-Term Ecological Research Network is finding a remarkably consistent pattern by combining models and data across several long-term ecological experiments. Their study, published in Ecological Monographs, asks how the intensity and duration of changes interact to determine whether an ecosystem shift is temporary or more likely to be permanent. (Marty Downs)

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