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Ecological Thresholds: The Key to Successful Environmental Management or an Important Concept with No Practical Application?
Authors:Email author" target="_blank">Peter?M?GroffmanEmail author  Jill?S?Baron  Tamara?Blett  Arthur?J?Gold  Iris?Goodman  Lance?H?Gunderson  Barbara?M?Levinson  Margaret?A?Palmer  Hans?W?Paerl  Garry?D?Peterson  N?LeRoy?Poff  David?W?Rejeski  James?F?Reynolds  Monica?G?Turner  Kathleen?C?Weathers  John?Wiens
Institution:(1) Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Box AB, Millbrook, New York 12545, USA;(2) Natural Resource Ecology Laboratory, US Geological Survey, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523-1499, USA;(3) Air Resources Division, USDI-National Park Service, Academy Place, Room 450, P.O. Box 25287, Denver, Colorado 80225-0287, USA;(4) Department of Natural Resources Science, 105 Coastal Institute in Kingston, University of Rhode Island, One Greenhouse Road, Kingston, Rhode Island 02881, USA;(5) US Environmental Protection Agency Headquarters, Ariel Rios Building, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW, Washington, DC 20460, USA;(6) Department of Environmental Studies, Emory University, 400 Dowman Drive, Atlanta, Georgia 30322, USA;(7) University of Maryland, Plant Sciences Building 4112, College Park, Maryland 20742-4415, USA;(8) Institute of Marine Sciences, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 3431 Arendell Street, Morehead City, North Carolina 28557, USA;(9) Center for Limnology, University of Wisconsin, 680 N. Park St, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA;(10) Department of Biology, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523, USA;(11) Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, One Woodrow Wilson Plaza, 1300 Pennsylvania Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20004-3027, USA;(12) Department of Biology, Duke University, Box 90338, Durham, North Carolina 27708, USA;(13) Department of Zoology, University of Wisconsin, 430 Lincoln Drive, Birge Hall 432, Madison, Wisconsin 53706, USA;(14) The Nature Conservancy, 4245 North Fairfax Drive, Suite 100, Arlington, Virginia 22203, USA
Abstract:An ecological threshold is the point at which there is an abrupt change in an ecosystem quality, property or phenomenon, or where small changes in an environmental driver produce large responses in the ecosystem. Analysis of thresholds is complicated by nonlinear dynamics and by multiple factor controls that operate at diverse spatial and temporal scales. These complexities have challenged the use and utility of threshold concepts in environmental management despite great concern about preventing dramatic state changes in valued ecosystems, the need for determining critical pollutant loads and the ubiquity of other threshold-based environmental problems. In this paper we define the scope of the thresholds concept in ecological science and discuss methods for identifying and investigating thresholds using a variety of examples from terrestrial and aquatic environments, at ecosystem, landscape and regional scales. We end with a discussion of key research needs in this area.
Keywords:thresholds  multiple stable states  critical loads  panarchy  ecological surprises  ecological modeling
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