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.
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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A new study has revealed a critical gap between global promises to restore forests and what is happening on the ground for the communities who depend on, manage and care for them. The research, led by researchers from The ...
Ecology
Feb 26, 2026
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Fire is a natural and essential part of the Australian ecological landscape, with many native plant species regenerating after fire that occurs under the right conditions. However, a new study, "Ecological Resilience of Restored ...
Ecology
Feb 18, 2026
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A major new international review co-authored by Professor Gemma Harvey, Professor of Physical Geography in the Department of Geography and Environmental Science at Queen Mary University of London, highlights how species that ...
Ecology
Feb 11, 2026
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More than a year after the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, the economic aftershocks of the disaster still permeate the lives of the people who survived it. Fewer than a dozen homes in some of the city's hardest-hit neighborhoods ...
Environment
Feb 10, 2026
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14
When and how quickly can ecosystems "tip" and how will they develop in the future? Researchers from the University of Potsdam, the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, and the Technical University of Munich have ...
Earth Sciences
Feb 6, 2026
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