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.
Human-driven changes to landscapes worldwide are 'thinning out' the ecological services supplied by wild birds, eroding the functions that support stable and resilient ecosystems.
Plants & Animals
Nov 26, 2025
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There's no one-size-fits-all solution to adapting and building resilience to climate change, but a new study led by the University of Michigan offers three generalized pathways to help climate knowledge achieve its maximum ...
Environment
Nov 24, 2025
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With climate change expected to intensify heat waves, flooding and air pollution in cities worldwide, why are we not tapping into the full potential of nature-based solutions?
Environment
Nov 24, 2025
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Temperate rainforests are among the rarest habitats on Earth, supporting unique biodiversity and providing vital benefits from climate regulation and natural flood management to supporting human well-being.
Ecology
Nov 19, 2025
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13
Two new studies from researchers at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography provide encouraging news about California's beaches at both local and statewide scales.
Earth Sciences
Nov 17, 2025
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Droughts are having a major impact on Europe's forests—and climate change could make them even more frequent—but diversity helps.
Ecology
Nov 13, 2025
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Rotating crops, using compost, adding cover crops and flower strips, and reducing tillage are practices that can make farms resilient to climate change and bring environmental benefits, but Cornell researchers have found ...
Agriculture
Nov 13, 2025
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24
California's coastal redwoods have stood for centuries, weathering a changing climate, logging, and time itself. But in an era of hotter, more frequent wildfires, their future resilience depends on how we care for them, according ...
Ecology
Nov 10, 2025
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29
As the world approaches critical tipping points, a comprehensive global scientific report shows that resilience—the ability to live and develop with change and crises—must now be placed at the heart of global decision-making.
Environment
Nov 4, 2025
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A research team led by Prof. Wang Li from the Aerospace Information Research Institute (AIR) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has found that ecosystems with more complete ecological succession and longer existence exhibit ...
Environment
Oct 31, 2025
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28
