view more
As climate change, habitat loss, invasive species, and overexploitation continue to reshape ecosystems worldwide, a central challenge for scientists and natural resource managers is understanding what makes ecosystems resilient—and how that resilience can be protected. A new synthesis paper recently published in Frontiers in Ecology & the Environment examines the ecological structures and processes that help ecosystems withstand these disturbances while continuing to provide the benefits that people and wildlife depend on.
Variation drives stability
Drawing on examples from across the Great Lakes Basin, researchers at the Centre for Ecosystem Management (CEM)—together with scientists from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Cornell University, Great Lakes Fishery Commission and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources—highlight the importance of what ecologists call "portfolio effects": the stabilizing influence that arises when ecosystems contain a diversity of species, habitats, and ecological interactions operating across multiple levels of ecological organization. These portfolio effects arise because ecosystems contain natural variation at multiple nested scales, from habitats and populations to species and entire energy pathways. Much like a diversified financial portfolio reduces risk, ecological diversity can buffer ecosystems against environmental change and help maintain the production of natural resources over time.
