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The mystery of ecosystem stability: What is the secret weapon of ecological balance?
In ecology, the stability (or balance) of an ecosystem is defined as the ability of the system to return to its equilibrium state after being disturbed, an ability known as resilience. Although community stability and ecological stability are sometimes used interchangeably, community stability refers simply to the characteristics of a community. In fact, an ecosystem or community may be stable in some properties and unstable in others.
Stable ecosystems are found throughout nature and are well documented in the scientific literature.
Scientific research mainly describes the stability of grassland plant communities and microbial communities. However, not all natural communities or ecosystems are stable, and experts point to some exceptions, such as the relationship between wolves and moose on Isola Royale. Noise also plays an important role in biological systems and in some cases can completely determine their temporal dynamics. The concept of ecological stability emerged in the first half of the 20th century, and with the development of theoretical ecology in the 1970s, the use of the term was expanded to a variety of contexts.
In 1997, Grimm and Wissel conducted an inventory of 167 definitions and found 70 different concepts of stability.
To clarify the topic, they propose replacing ecological stability with more specific terms such as invariance, resilience, and persistence. To fully describe and understand a particular type of stability, further detailed analysis is necessary, otherwise the statement about stability will lack reliability. Periodically oscillating ecosystems, such as predator-prey systems, should be described as persistent and resilient, but not unchanging. Nevertheless, some scholars believe that the diversity of definitions reflects the diversity of reality and mathematical systems.
Stability Analysis
When the species abundance of an ecosystem is treated as a set of differential equations, stability can be tested by linearizing it at equilibrium. In the 1970s, Robert May used this stability analysis method to study the relationship between species diversity and ecosystem stability using the Jacobian matrix or community matrix. May applied stability analysis to large ecosystems based on random matrix theory.
May's stability criterion states that dynamic stability is subject to diversity constraints, and the stringency of this constraint is related to the amplitude of the fluctuations in the interactions.
Recent studies have extended May's ideas by building phase diagrams for ecological models, such as the generalized Lotka-Voltera model or the consumer-resource model, and by using random matrix theory, cavity methods, and other methods inspired by spin glass physics. method. Although the characteristics of any ecosystem may change over time, some remain constant, oscillate, reach fixed points, or exhibit other behaviors that can be described as stable over time.
Stability and diversity
The relationship between diversity and stability has been extensively studied. For example, genetic diversity can enhance an ecosystem's resilience to environmental perturbations. At the community level, the structure of the food web also affects stability. Stability-diversity trade-offs have recently been observed in microbial communities in human and sponge host environments. These studies demonstrate that in large and heterogeneous ecological networks, stability can be modeled by dynamical Jacobian ensembles, showing that scale and heterogeneity can stabilize specific states of the system in the face of environmental perturbations.
ConclusionAs ecological research continues to deepen, our understanding becomes clearer, but the stability of ecosystems remains full of mysteries. The different parameters, the interactions between species and their complex structure make the study of stability an important challenge in ecology. How will our ecosystem respond to future challenges?
