Biocentric stability: Temporal Dynamics

Ecosystems are always recovering from past changes. Ecosystems are, always responding to past changes that have occurred over all time scales (Holling 1973, Wu and Loucks 1995). These changes include relatively predictable daily and seasonal variations, less predictable changes in weather (e.g., passage of weather fronts, El Niño events, and glacial cycles), and occurrence of disturbances (e.g., tree falls, herbivore outbreaks, fires, and volc anic eruptions). Consequently, the behaviour of an ecosystem is always influenced by both the current environment and many previous environmental fluctuations and disturbances.

The global environment is changing more rapidly than it has for millions of years. These changes result from an exponentially rising human population that shows an every- increasing technological capacity to alter Earth’s environment and ecosystems. Perhaps the most urgent need in ecosystem ecology is to improve our understanding of factors governing the stability and change in ecological systems This understanding is critical to managing ecosystems so they sustain their diversity and other important ecological attributes and so ecosystems continue to produce the goods and services required by society.