Ecosystem resilience is the capacity of an ecological system to absorb disturbances, reorganize, and retain its essential structure, functions, feedbacks, and identity within a particular stability domain. It reflects the system’s ability to maintain key processes such as nutrient cycling, energy flow, and species interactions despite perturbations, including climatic extremes, biological invasions, or anthropogenic impacts. Resilience arises from mechanisms like functional redundancy, response diversity, spatial and temporal heterogeneity, and connectivity among habitat patches. In research, it is quantified through metrics such as recovery rates, persistence of functional groups, thresholds for regime shifts, and the magnitude of disturbance a system can withstand before transitioning to an alternative stable state.
Billed as the first comprehensive report on the state of U.S. lands, water, and wildlife, the Nature Record National Assessment includes the decline of butterfly populations and other species to the remarkable comeback of ...
Environment
Mar 28, 2026
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From deadly heat waves to unprecedented flooding, devastating wildfires to record-breaking droughts, extreme weather is becoming the new normal. As climate-fueled shocks multiply, some creatures in our oceans, forests, deserts ...
Evolution
Mar 23, 2026
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Mangrove forests protect tropical coasts from storms, store large amounts of carbon and provide vital habitats for plants and animals, serving, for example, as nurseries for fish and crabs. They also supply local communities ...
Ecology
Mar 12, 2026
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106
As the United States continues to lead global oil and gas production—accounting for roughly 20% of worldwide output in 2024—understanding how different extraction methods affect ecosystems has never been more urgent. A new ...
Environment
Mar 10, 2026
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Climate change is threatening modern life in ways we are still finding, from food security to the economy to everyday living. It has been labeled a "threat multiplier" for its potential to complicate geopolitical relationships. ...
Plants & Animals
Mar 9, 2026
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Intact ecosystems have the capacity for self-regulation, which keeps their complex structure of species—such as animals, plants, fungi and bacteria—in balance. For example, when the population of a species increases, its ...
Ecology
Mar 5, 2026
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A global study of mangroves has found that a modest boost in conserved areas could significantly increase their ability to adapt to the changing climate, including rising sea levels. University of Queensland Ph.D. candidate ...
Environment
Mar 4, 2026
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In 2019 and again in 2021, Penn State researchers in the Department of Geography walked a series of 1,000 square foot plots in California's Lassen Volcanic National Park. The goal was to see how the forest that's hands-off ...
Ecology
Mar 4, 2026
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National parks in the United States represent a treasure trove of natural, historical, and recreational landscapes, but their health is at risk. A comprehensive new study on the climate-change vulnerability of national parks, ...
The Florida Everglades is a complicated climate actor. The 1.5-million-acre wetland system remains a carbon sink, removing an average of 13.7 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere each year, but the system ...
Earth Sciences
Mar 2, 2026
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