Prolonged Instability Prior to a Regime Shift

Trisha L. Spanbauer; Craig R. Allen; David G. Angeler; Tarsha Eason; Sherilyn C. Fritz; Ahjond S. Garmestani; Kirsty L. Nash; Jeffery R. Stone

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0108936

Prolonged Instability Prior to a Regime Shift

Trisha L. Spanbauer
, Craig R. Allen
, David G. Angeler
, Tarsha Eason
, Sherilyn C. Fritz
, Ahjond S. Garmestani
, Kirsty L. Nash
, Jeffery R. Stone

Earth and Environmental Sciences

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

65 Scopus citations

Abstract

Regime shifts are generally defined as the point of 'abrupt' change in the state of a system. However, a seemingly abrupt transition can be the product of a system reorganization that has been ongoing much longer than is evident in statistical analysis of a single component of the system. Using both univariate and multivariate statistical methods, we tested a long-term high-resolution paleoecological dataset with a known change in species assemblage for a regime shift. Analysis of this dataset with Fisher Information and multivariate time series modeling showed that there was a, 2000 year period of instability prior to the regime shift. This period of instability and the subsequent regime shift coincide with regional climate change, indicating that the system is undergoing extrinsic forcing. Paleoecological records offer a unique opportunity to test tools for the detection of thresholds and stable-states, and thus to examine the long-term stability of ecosystems over periods of multiple millennia.

Original language	English
Article number	e108936
Number of pages	7
Journal	PLoS ONE
Volume	9
Issue number	10
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0108936
State	Published - Oct 3 2014

Funding

The Nebraska Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit is jointly supported by a cooperative agreement between the U.S. Geological Survey, the Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service, and the Wildlife Management Institute. This work was supported in part by the August T. Larsson Foundation of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and the NSF's Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program (NSF #0903469) and the Sedimentary Geology & Paleobiology program (NSF #1251678). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Funders	Funder number
U.S. Geological Survey
Nebraska Game and Parks Commission
University of Nebraska–Lincoln
United States Fish and Wildlife Service
Wildlife Management Institute
August T Larsson Foundation of the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
NSF's Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program (NSF)	0903469
Sedimentary Geology & Paleobiology program (NSF)	1251678
Directorate For Geosciences; Division Of Earth Sciences	1251678, 1251581
Division Of Graduate Education; Direct For Education and Human Resources	0903469

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 13 Climate Action

Keywords

Early-warning signals
Fisher information
Multidecadal drought
Ecological-systems
Time
Resilience
Montana
Diatom
Sustainability
Biodiversity

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10.1371/journal.pone.0108936

Cite this

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abstract = "Regime shifts are generally defined as the point of 'abrupt' change in the state of a system. However, a seemingly abrupt transition can be the product of a system reorganization that has been ongoing much longer than is evident in statistical analysis of a single component of the system. Using both univariate and multivariate statistical methods, we tested a long-term high-resolution paleoecological dataset with a known change in species assemblage for a regime shift. Analysis of this dataset with Fisher Information and multivariate time series modeling showed that there was a, 2000 year period of instability prior to the regime shift. This period of instability and the subsequent regime shift coincide with regional climate change, indicating that the system is undergoing extrinsic forcing. Paleoecological records offer a unique opportunity to test tools for the detection of thresholds and stable-states, and thus to examine the long-term stability of ecosystems over periods of multiple millennia.",

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AU - Garmestani, Ahjond S.

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Prolonged Instability Prior to a Regime Shift

Abstract

Funding

UN SDGs

Keywords

Access to Document

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