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Submission declined on 26 February 2024 by Star Mississippi (talk). This submission reads more like an essay than an encyclopedia article. Submissions should summarise information in secondary, reliable sources and not contain opinions or original research. Please write about the topic from a neutral point of view in an encyclopedic manner. Declined by Star Mississippi 6 months ago. | ![]() |
Comment: This is largely unsourced, so gives the appearance of original research. Theroadislong (talk) 17:17, 22 March 2024 (UTC)
Ecological Structural Instability refers to the sensitivity of ecological communities to direct or indirect environmental pressures which are so high that they result in species extinctions.[1]. At this point, invasion of a single new species can force the extinction of another. Species of a low abundance with small biomass are the most likely to go extinct at the point of Ecological Structural Instability[2]. If one species replaces the role of another species upon extinction, then this will have little effect on ecosystem function[1]
![This image shows gradual saturation of an ecosystem to the point of Ecological Structural Instability. At the start species invasions do not lead to extinctions, though as more species enter the ecosystem, one species invasion leads to another species extinction.](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/ce/Ecological_Structural_Instability.jpg/439px-Ecological_Structural_Instability.jpg)
This links to the mathematical concept of structural instability, defined in dynamical systems theory as a situation where a small change in a system can change its behaviour qualitatively.[3].
Effects of invaders[4]
Invaders can impact communities directly through:
• Direct interspecific competition between species (e.g. for shelter)
Or indirectly through:
• Interspecific competition of predators for shared prey.
• Introduction of a new predator leading to trophic cascades
Near the instability limit, indirect interactions involving multiple species are important, accounting for ~50% of community alterations [5][6]. The full effects of this would be seen over a long period of time, so short-term responses are a poor measure of the full impact[7].
Mathematical Models
Mathematical analysis can provide more in depth understanding of ecological structural instability, especially because the effects of indirect interactions can be counter-intuitive, and can be used to make quantitative predictions.
Lotka-Volterra competition models with random interactions aid the study of instability in species-rich communities and are supported by empirical data [8]. Simulation predictions are often robust to variations in model structure, except in some cases [9][10]
Mathematical analysis shows that around half of invasion attempts succeed, matching observations [11].
References
edit- ^ a b Rossberg, Axel; Caskenette, Amanda; Bersier, Louis-Félix (5 December 2017). Adaptive Food Webs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 372–383. doi:10.1017/9781316871867.024. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
- ^ "Biodiversity and Ecosystem Stability | Learn Science at Scitable". www.nature.com. Retrieved 2024-04-16.
- ^ Pugh, Charles C.; Robinson, Clark (June 1983). "The C1 Closing Lemma, including Hamiltonians". Ergodic Theory and Dynamical Systems. 3 (2): 261–313. doi:10.1017/S0143385700001978. ISSN 1469-4417.
- ^ Northfield, Tobin D.; Laurance, Susan G. W.; Mayfield, Margaret M.; Paini, Dean R.; Snyder, William E.; Stouffer, Daniel B.; Wright, Jeffrey T.; Lach, Lori (2018-01-31). "Native turncoats and indirect facilitation of species invasions". Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. 285 (1871): 20171936. doi:10.1098/rspb.2017.1936. ISSN 0962-8452. PMC 5805925. PMID 29367390.
- ^ Menge, Bruce (1995). "Indirect Effects in Marine Rocky Intertidal Interaction Webs: Patterns and Importance". Ecological Monographs. 65 (1): 21–74. Bibcode:1995EcoM...65...21M. doi:10.2307/2937158. JSTOR 2937158. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
- ^ Rossberg, Axel (3 June 2013). Food Webs and Biodiversity: Foundations, Models and Data. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. doi:10.1002/9781118502181. ISBN 9781118502181. Retrieved 1 December 2023.
- ^ Zelnik, Yuval R.; Galiana, Nuria; Barbier, Matthieu; Loreau, Michel; Galbraith, Eric; Arnoldi, Jean-François (2024). "How collectively integrated are ecological communities?". Ecology Letters. 27 (1): e14358. Bibcode:2024EcolL..27E4358Z. doi:10.1111/ele.14358. ISSN 1461-023X. PMID 38288867.
- ^ Barbier, Matthieu; de Mazancourt, Claire; Loreau, Michel; Bunin, Guy (2021-01-14). "Fingerprints of High-Dimensional Coexistence in Complex Ecosystems". Physical Review X. 11 (1): 011009. Bibcode:2021PhRvX..11a1009B. doi:10.1103/PhysRevX.11.011009.
- ^ Barbier, Matthieu; Arnoldi, Jean-François; Bunin, Guy; Loreau, Michel (2018-02-27). "Generic assembly patterns in complex ecological communities". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 115 (9): 2156–2161. Bibcode:2018PNAS..115.2156B. doi:10.1073/pnas.1710352115. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 5834670. PMID 29440487.
- ^ Pettersson, Susanne; Savage, Van M.; Jacobi, Martin Nilsson (2020-12-03). "Stability of ecosystems enhanced by species-interaction constraints". Physical Review E. 102 (6): 062405. Bibcode:2020PhRvE.102f2405P. doi:10.1103/PhysRevE.102.062405. PMID 33465982.
- ^ Cockrell, Cillian; O'Sullivan, Jacob D.; Terry, J. Christopher D.; Nwankwo, Emmanuel C.; Trachenko, Kostya; Rossberg, Axel G. (2024-01-25). "Self-organization of ecosystems to exclude half of all potential invaders". Physical Review Research. 6 (1): 013093. Bibcode:2024PhRvR...6a3093C. doi:10.1103/PhysRevResearch.6.013093.