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An example of ecological stability . In ecology, an ecosystem is said to possess ecological stability (or equilibrium) if it is capable of returning to its equilibrium state after a perturbation (a capacity known as resilience) or does not experience unexpected large changes in its characteristics across time. [1]
Hysteresis is an important concept in alternative stable state theory. In this ecological context, hysteresis refers to the existence of different stable states under the same variables or parameters. Hysteresis can be explained by "path-dependency", in which the equilibrium point for the trajectory of "A → B" is different from for "B → A ...
Resistance is one of the major aspects of ecological stability.Volker Grimm and Christian Wissel identified 70 terms and 163 distinct definitions of the various aspects of ecological stability, but found that they could be reduced to three fundamental properties: "staying essentially unchanged", "returning to the reference state...after a temporary disturbance" and "persistence through time of ...
The balance of nature, also known as ecological balance, is a theory that proposes that ecological systems are usually in a stable equilibrium or homeostasis, which is to say that a small change (the size of a particular population, for example) will be corrected by some negative feedback that will bring the parameter back to its original "point of balance" with the rest of the system.
The concept of resilience in ecological systems was first introduced by the Canadian ecologist C.S. Holling [7] in order to describe the persistence of natural systems in the face of changes in ecosystem variables due to natural or anthropogenic causes. Resilience has been defined in two ways in ecological literature:
The stability–instability paradox is an international relations theory regarding the effect of nuclear weapons and mutually assured destruction.It states that when two countries each have nuclear weapons, the probability of a direct war between them greatly decreases, but the probability of minor or indirect conflicts between them increases.
An evolutionarily stable state is a dynamic property of a population that returns to using a strategy, or mix of strategies, if it is perturbed from that initial state. It is part of population genetics, dynamical system, or evolutionary game theory. This is now called convergent stability. [11]
(a), (c), (e) example time-series (coloured lines) through the tipping point with black solid lines indicating stable climate states (e.g. low or high rainfall) and dashed lines represent the boundary between stable states. (b), (d), (f) stability landscapes provide an understanding for the different types of tipping point.