Systemic risk and systemic opportunity: Alternative realities in ecological and social systems Kogtraveler.com Simon Levin HistoricalCollapse2019 With thanks to Increasingly, we are hearing news about impending catastrophes 1ggye33lc4653z56mp34pl6t.wpengine And there are historical precedents 20 years ago, John Steele called attention to ecological regime shifts February 1998 REGIME SHIFTS IN MARINE ECOSYSTEMS S33 Ecological Applications, 8(1) Supplement, 1998, pp. S33–S36 ᭧ 1998 by the Ecological Society of America REGIME SHIFTS IN MARINE ECOSYSTEMS JOHN H. STEELE Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, Massachusetts 02543 USA www.whoi.edu Abstract. Time scales, and the trophic relations between these scales, are very different in the sea from those on land. In particular, marine systems are much more responsive to decadal scale alterations in their physical environment but are also much more adaptable. Thus it is difficult, and probably counterproductive, to try to define a baseline state for marine ecosystems. Further, regime shifts in fish communities can have major economic consequences without being ecological disasters. Climatic changes at decadal scales, from natural or anthropogenic causes, are likely to produce or enhance regime shifts. There are different management issues in different sectors. The coastal zone demands our intervention to assure integrated management of the land and sea components. At the other extreme, our understanding of open ocean systems is an essential element of climate prediction and so of eventual management. Between these two environments, our use of resources in continental shelf seas requires an ability to distinguish between human and natural causes of long-term change. Key words: ecological fungibility; fisheries; management; regime shifts; time scales; sustain- ability. INTRODUCTION this reason, ocean systems are more amenable to longer term predictions: witness our successes with El Nin˜o Ifinditdifficulttoapplytheconceptofsustainability (Chen et al. 1995). Yet, these climate forecasts are still to life in the sea. In part, this is because the idea of on time scales of months to years rather than decades. sustainability eludes strict definition, especially in such When we turn to time scales of biological systems achangeableenvironmentastheocean.Yetthereisa on land and in the sea, the relation tends to be the common element in the different expressions for sus- reverse of the physics. On land, perennial grasses and tainability: our obligations to future generations trees are longest lived, with lifetimes that can be mea- (Brundtland 1987). There is the strong implication that sured in centuries. In the open sea, at the base of the we have some ability to forecast the consequences of food chain, are microscopic plants—phytoplankton— present actions or policies at decadal time scales. Pre- with lifetimes of days for individual organisms. Near diction is one of the objectives of scientific research the top of the open sea food chain are fish that we and it is from this viewpoint that I shall consider our harvest, like cod or tuna, with life-spans of years. Thus, understanding of the ocean. It is in this aspect of sci- the impact of our activities at time scales on the order ence—prediction—that the scientist and the policy of generations (i.e., decadal) can be very different on maker usually overlap and sometimes disagree. land and in the sea. From the human perspective, we Our ability to say something about the future is close- are in between, looking in different temporal ‘‘direc- ly related to the time scales involved. In the natural tions’’ at the land and sea. This, necessarily, has an world, this depends on the time scales of the processes effect on our concept of sustainability at our own in- we are interested in. I have argued (Steele 1985, 1991) tergenerational scales in the two environments. that a fundamental feature of the oceans is the differ- There is another difference between land and sea. ence in time scales compared with the land and at- Because of the similarity in time scales of the physical mosphere. Here, I will try to relate these differing and biological processes in the ocean, we oceanogra- scales to issues of management, especially of fisheries. phers see marine ecosystems as closely coupled to the As we know too well, weather forecasts are limited dynamics of advection and dispersion. Thus, marine to about a week, because this is the usual lifetime of communities are much more responsive to decadal cyclonic systems. In the sea, the corresponding feature, scale alterations in their physical environment than ocean eddies, can have durations of up to a year. For those on land, but are also much more adaptable to such changes (Steele 1991). Manuscript received 20 February 1996; revised 15 July OCEAN SECTORS 1996; accepted 15 September 1996; final version received 18 February 1997. For reprints of this Special Issue, see footnote Given these generalizations about time scales in 1, p. S1. ocean processes, there is still tremendous diversity of S33 But interest in alternative states, thresholds and transitions was not a new occupation in ecology BNL 19244 WOODWELL, 1974 THE THRESHOLD PROBLEM IN E C O S Y S T E M S George M . W o o d w e l l The biotic resources of t h e e a r t h , most of w h i c h exist in n a t u r a l o r lightly managed ecosystems, a r e p r e s e n t l y in r e t r e a t undsr a barrage o f different types of d i s t u r b a n c e s that range from simple mechanical displace- ment to c u m u l a t i v e toxification of e n v i r o n m e n t . The r e s o u r c e s are i r r e p l a c e - able by t e c h n o l o g y , no m a t t e r the a b u n d a n c e of e n e r g y . The l o s s e s are r a p i d , accelerating, cumulative, and l a r g e l y irreversible; at s o m e point these changes must be r e c o g n i z e d as r e d u c i n g the h a b i t a b i l i t y of t h e e a r t h f o r man. Biotic change has n o t a l w a y s done so, o f c o u r s e , but t h e c h a n g e s a r e now worldwide and a f f e c t supplies of f o o d , fiber, fuel, a n d w a t e r as w e l l as the q u a l i t y of w a t e r and a i r . We a s k n o w w h a t can b e d r a w n from t h e science of e n v i r o n m e n t to m i t i g a t e or r e v e r s e the c u r r e n t trends? Is it possible to a l l o w limited worldwide changes in t h e p h y s i c s and c h e m i s t r y o f environment without aggravating these trends? Is i t r e a s o n a b l e to a s s u m e that thresholds for e f f e c t s of d i s t u r b a n c e exist in n a t u r a l ecosystems? Or are a l l d i s t u r b a n c e s effective, cumulative, and d e t r i m e n t a l to t h e n o r m a l *Biology Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, New Y o r k 11973. Research carried out a t B r o o k h a v e n National Laboratory under the a u s p i c e s of the U . S . A t o m i c Energy Commission. MISTER -NOTICE- This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by ihe United States Government. Neither the United Stales nor the United States Atomic Energy Commission, nor any of their employees, nor any of their contrauors, subcontractors, or their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, com- pleteness or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product or process disclosed, or represents that its. use would not infringe privately owned rights. TED © 1977 Nature Publishing Group Ecological and socio-economic systems indeed can undergo sudden transitions Scheffer, M. 1997. Ecology of shallow lakes. Kluwer Academic PuBlishers, Dordrecht, NL. And one transition can lead to another NETWORK ANALYSIS Seeing a global web of connected systems Social-ecological shifts may often be causally linked By Marten Scheffer and Egbert H. van Nes niques to mine the wealth of qualitative els of complex systems remain difficult to understanding of what affects what in the verify and inevitably leave out potentially he Arab Spring, the invention of pen- world (5, 6). Rocha et al. took such an ap- important processes (9).