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Approaching tipping points: a focussed review of indicators and relevance to managing intertidal ecosystems

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Abstract

Abrupt ecosystem regime shifts from one state to another can occur in response to environmental change (such as climate/sea level change). Detecting an approaching tipping point may help management to adapt to or mitigate the effects of catastrophic change. Intertidal wetlands are one of the most vulnerable ecosystems, faced with climate, sea level and anthropogenic changes. Early warning indicators of regime shifts that may be evident include slowing recovery rates from perturbation, increased autocorrelation and variance, changing skewness and self-organised patchiness. We examine these indicators using intertidal examples and discuss the limitations. Managers cannot adapt to or mitigate the effects of state shifts over tipping points if there is no way to detect early warning signals. This detection is highly dependent on system-specific modelling and requires understanding of alternate stable states theory and its application in large, complex ecosystems.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the reviewers for their constructive comments on the manuscript. We acknowledge support from an Innovative Research Universities of Australia Tipping Point project.

Funding

The project was funded by the Innovative Research Universities Australia for a Tipping Point project.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Environmental Futures Research Institute and Griffith School of Environment, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia

    L. Eslami-Andergoli, P. E. R. Dale & H. McCallum

  2. Australian Rivers Institute and Griffith School of Environment, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD, Australia

    J. M. Knight

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  1. L. Eslami-Andergoli
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  2. P. E. R. Dale
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  3. J. M. Knight
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  4. H. McCallum
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Correspondence to P. E. R. Dale.

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Eslami-Andergoli, L., Dale, P.E.R., Knight, J.M. et al. Approaching tipping points: a focussed review of indicators and relevance to managing intertidal ecosystems. Wetlands Ecol Manage 23, 791–802 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-014-9352-8

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