Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems.¶
Holling, C. S. (1973). Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 4, 1-23.
Cited by¶
15 citations across 15 artifacts.
Each citation links to the sentence it supports in the citing article.
Primes¶
- Adaptive Capacity
- The Holling adaptive cycle and its capacity dynamics
This sourceDefines resilience as a system's capacity to absorb perturbations and return to its original state or regime; distinguishes resilience (recovery rate) from resistance (response magnitude); foundational for understanding ecosystem responses to disturbance.
- The Holling adaptive cycle and its capacity dynamics
- Attractor Selection and Basin Control
- Restoration efforts must overcome the basin structure: simply removing the initial disturbance may not restore the original state if the basin boundary has shifted, a property Holling (1973) formalized in his foundational analysis of resilience and stability in ecological systems.
This sourceDefines resilience as capacity to absorb perturbations and persist within a regime; distinguishes resilience from stability/resistance and underlies why removing a disturbance need not restore the original state if the basin has shifted. SUPPORTS marker 056.
- Restoration efforts must overcome the basin structure: simply removing the initial disturbance may not restore the original state if the basin boundary has shifted, a property Holling (1973) formalized in his foundational analysis of resilience and stability in ecological systems.
- Balance
- … management), and capability balancing in education (breadth vs. depth). The failure mode of imbalance is predictable: over-concentration in high-return assets (dominance failure), over-diversification into low-conviction positions (excessive averaging), or failure to adjust as conditions change (static-bias failure).
This sourceDistinguishes resilience (capacity to absorb disturbance and persist) from stability, noting over-optimized stability can reduce resilience. Cited inline (tier B) in tension T2 ('In systems thinking, Holling 1973 on resilience …'), which it supports
- … management), and capability balancing in education (breadth vs. depth). The failure mode of imbalance is predictable: over-concentration in high-return assets (dominance failure), over-diversification into low-conviction positions (excessive averaging), or failure to adjust as conditions change (static-bias failure).
- Environmental Coupling Strength
- Migratory species effectively reduce seasonal environmental coupling by moving; sessile plants exhibit high environmental coupling to light, water, and soil conditions.
This sourceDefines resilience as a system's capacity to absorb perturbations and persist; distinguishes resilience from resistance. SUPPORTS marker 189 (organism-environment interaction framed as central to ecological resilience and adaptive capacity).
- Migratory species effectively reduce seasonal environmental coupling by moving; sessile plants exhibit high environmental coupling to light, water, and soil conditions.
- Equilibrium
- . Biology and ecology Homeostasis as a controlled equilibrium of physiological variables (body temperature, blood pH, blood glucose). Predator-prey equilibria in population dynamics. Multiple stable equilibria and ecological resilience
This sourceIntroduces ecological resilience as the magnitude of disturbance a system absorbs before flipping to an alternative stable state (e.g., clear- vs. turbid-water lakes); distinguishes resilience (basin/persistence) from local stability.
- . Biology and ecology Homeostasis as a controlled equilibrium of physiological variables (body temperature, blood pH, blood glucose). Predator-prey equilibria in population dynamics. Multiple stable equilibria and ecological resilience
- Homeostasis
- cybernetics and engineering (Ashby's (1952) Design for a Brain and the homeostat; thermostats, autopilots, cruise control, power-grid frequency regulation, process control across chemical plants; PID controllers are the workhorse homeostatic mechanism),
This sourceDefines resilience as a system's capacity to absorb perturbations and return to its original state or regime; distinguishes resilience (recovery rate) from resistance (response magnitude); foundational for understanding ecosystem responses to disturbance.
- cybernetics and engineering (Ashby's (1952) Design for a Brain and the homeostat; thermostats, autopilots, cruise control, power-grid frequency regulation, process control across chemical plants; PID controllers are the workhorse homeostatic mechanism),
- Perturbation
- .
This sourceDefines resilience as a system's capacity to absorb perturbations and return to its original state or regime; distinguishes resilience (recovery rate) from resistance (response magnitude); foundational for understanding ecosystem responses to disturbance.
- .
- Regime Change
- Once shifted, the system exhibits new dominant dynamics, new equilibria, and new constraints that were absent in the previous regime, an idea Holling (1973) introduced through his analysis of resilience and stability in ecological systems.
This sourceDefines resilience as a system's capacity to absorb perturbations and return to its original state or regime; distinguishes resilience (recovery rate) from resistance (response magnitude); foundational for understanding ecosystem responses to disturbance.
- Once shifted, the system exhibits new dominant dynamics, new equilibria, and new constraints that were absent in the previous regime, an idea Holling (1973) introduced through his analysis of resilience and stability in ecological systems.
- Requisite Variety
- ecology (biodiversity enables ecosystem response to perturbations; low-diversity ecosystems collapse under novel stressors)
This sourceDefines resilience as a system's capacity to absorb perturbations and return to its original state or regime; distinguishes resilience (recovery rate) from resistance (response magnitude); foundational for understanding ecosystem responses to disturbance.
- ecology (biodiversity enables ecosystem response to perturbations; low-diversity ecosystems collapse under novel stressors)
- Resilience
- Resilience is the capacity of a system to absorb disturbances and continue functioning — either by returning to its prior state (engineering sense), by remaining within its current regime under a range of perturbations (ecological sense), or by reorganizing and adapting to maintain essential function under change (adaptive sense), as Holling (1973) first formalized for ecosystem dynamics
This sourceDefines resilience as a system's capacity to absorb perturbations and return to its original state or regime; distinguishes resilience (recovery rate) from resistance (response magnitude); foundational for understanding ecosystem responses to disturbance.
- Resilience is the capacity of a system to absorb disturbances and continue functioning — either by returning to its prior state (engineering sense), by remaining within its current regime under a range of perturbations (ecological sense), or by reorganizing and adapting to maintain essential function under change (adaptive sense), as Holling (1973) first formalized for ecosystem dynamics
- Robustness
This sourceDefines resilience as a system's capacity to absorb perturbations and return to its original state or regime; distinguishes resilience (recovery rate) from resistance (response magnitude); foundational for understanding ecosystem responses to disturbance.
- Self-Organized Criticality
- Ecosystems exhibit self-organized criticality through predator-prey dynamics, resource fluctuations, and environmental variability, a fluctuation-stability coupling Holling (1973) characterized in his foundational separation of resilience from static stability in ecological systems.
This sourceDefines resilience as a system's capacity to absorb perturbations and return to its original state or regime; distinguishes resilience (recovery rate) from resistance (response magnitude); foundational for understanding ecosystem responses to disturbance.
- Ecosystems exhibit self-organized criticality through predator-prey dynamics, resource fluctuations, and environmental variability, a fluctuation-stability coupling Holling (1973) characterized in his foundational separation of resilience from static stability in ecological systems.
- Stability
- Ecosystem ecology: a system's return to a characteristic species composition after disturbance; Holling's engineering resilience is essentially return rate after perturbation.
This sourceDistinguishes engineering resilience (return rate) from ecological resilience (basin size) for ecosystems returning to species composition.
- Ecosystem ecology: a system's return to a characteristic species composition after disturbance; Holling's engineering resilience is essentially return rate after perturbation.
- Tipping Points (or Phase Transitions)
- The basin of attraction around each state determines resilience
This sourceDefines resilience as a system's capacity to absorb perturbations and return to its original state or regime; distinguishes resilience (recovery rate) from resistance (response magnitude); foundational for understanding ecosystem responses to disturbance.
- The basin of attraction around each state determines resilience
- Ultra-Stability (Ashby's Concept)
- In ecology, ultra-stability is ecosystem resilience: the capacity to maintain ecosystem function (energy flow, nutrient cycling) despite species loss, environmental changes, or novel stressors, through structural and functional redundancy
This sourceDefines resilience as a system's capacity to absorb perturbations and return to its original state or regime; distinguishes resilience (recovery rate) from resistance (response magnitude); foundational for understanding ecosystem responses to disturbance.
- In ecology, ultra-stability is ecosystem resilience: the capacity to maintain ecosystem function (energy flow, nutrient cycling) despite species loss, environmental changes, or novel stressors, through structural and functional redundancy
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