Cascading regime shifts within and across scales

• DOI: 10.1126/science.aat7850
• Publication Date: 2018-12-21T02:25:46Z
• Authors: Juan C. Rocha; Garry Peterson; Örjan Bodin; Simon Levin
• Keywords: Time Factors; 13. Climate action; Climate Change; 15. Life on land; Ecosystem

Regime shifts are large, abrupt, and persistent critical transitions in the function structure of ecosystems. Yet, it is unknown how these will interact, whether occurrence one increase likelihood another or simply correlate at distant places. We explored two types cascading effects: Domino effects create one-way dependencies, whereas hidden feedbacks produce two-way interactions. compare them with control case driver sharing, which can induce correlations. Using 30 regime described as networks, we show that 45% shift pairwise combinations present least plausible structural interdependence. The depends on cross-scale interactions but differs for each type. Management should account potential connections.