Tipping Points

Abstract

Abstract Here we explore ecosystems on the point of collapse, and ask what interventions are likely to have the greatest positive effect on them. We travel to stressed ecosystems in western Mongolia, northern China, and the Atacama Desert in northern Chile, and find that even the most challenged ecological communities retain a surprising amount of evolutionary potential. We see how restoration programs are adapting to this new knowledge, incorporating the unique features of each ecosystem into their approaches. We visit a largely unsuccessful coral reef restoration program on the island of Bohol in the Philippines, and learn from coral ecologists the most likely reasons for its failure. In all of these cases, it is essential to restore and preserve ecosystems in their entirety. Then we turn to additional ways to measure interactions among species in intact ecosystems. My colleagues and I have recently shown that it is possible to measure how interactions between pairs of tree species change over time, and how they are influenced by environmental factors such as soil composition. Ecosystems really are complicated, ever-changing places!