Related papers: Chemical contamination mediated regime shifts in p…
Ecosystems often undergo abrupt regime shifts in response to gradual external changes. These shifts are theoretically understood as a regime switch between alternative stable states of the ecosystem dynamical response to smooth changes in…
The composition of ecological communities varies not only between different locations but also in time. Understanding the fundamental processes that drive species towards rarity or abundance is crucial to assessing ecosystem resilience and…
The combined effect of tidal forcing and aquifer heterogeneity leads to intricate transport patterns in coastal aquifers that impact both on solute residence times and mixing dynamics. We study these patterns through detailed numerical…
Ecosystems, which are intricate amalgams of biological communities and their surrounding environments, continually evolve under the influence of their myriad interactions. The world is currently facing intensifying environmental…
Critical transitions describe sudden changes in the state of an ecosystem. In classical bifurcation theory, such transitions occur when the value of a parameter exceeds a threshold (``bifurcation") value. More recently, critical transitions…
Critical transitions or regime shifts are sudden and unexpected changes in the state of an ecosystem, that are usually associated with dangerous levels of environmental change. However, recent studies show that critical transitions can also…
A fundamental goal of microbial ecology is to understand what determines the diversity, stability, and structure of microbial ecosystems. The microbial context poses special conceptual challenges because of the strong mutual influences…
Pigmentation abnormalities, ranging from hypo- to hyperpigmentation, can serve as biomarkers of developmental disruption in fish exposed to environmental contaminants. However, the mechanistic pathways underlying these alterations remain…
Rapid anthropogenic environmental changes, including those due to habitat contamination, degradation, and climate change, have far-reaching effects on biological systems that may outpace animals' adaptive responses (Radchuk et al., 2019).…
Global environmental change is pushing many socio-environmental systems towards critical thresholds, where ecological systems' states are on the precipice of tipping points and interventions are needed to navigate or avert impending…
Ecosystems can undergo sudden shifts to undesirable states, but recent studies with simple single species ecosystems have demonstrated that advance warning can be provided by the slowing down of population dynamics near a tipping point.…
In ecology, climate and other fields, (sub)systems have been identified that can transition into a qualitatively different state when a critical threshold or tipping point in a driving process is crossed. An understanding of those tipping…
Gradual changes in exploitation, nutrient loading, etc. produce shifts between alternative stable states (ASS) in ecosystems which, quite often, are not smooth but abrupt or catastrophic. Early warnings of such catastrophic regime shifts…
We analyze the joint effect of contaminants and nutrient loading on population dynamics of marine food chains by means of bifurcation analysis. Contaminant toxicity is assumed to alter mortality of some species with a sigmoidal…
A cyclically dominating three-species ecosystem, modeled within the framework of rock-paper-scissor game, is studied in presence of natural death and an effect of the environment. The environmental impact is parameterized along with the…
The history of the Earth has been marked by major ecological transitions, driven by metabolic innovation, that radically reshaped the composition of the oceans and atmosphere. The nature and magnitude of the earliest transitions, hundreds…
In the marine environment biological processes are strongly affected by oceanic currents, particularly by eddies (vortices) formed by the hydrodynamic flow field. Employing a kinematic flow field coupled to a population dynamical model for…
Coastal ecosystems are increasingly experiencing anthropogenic pressures such as climate heating, CO2 increase, metal and organic pollution, overfishing and resource extraction. Some resulting stressors are more direct like fisheries,…
Stochastic chemical reaction or population dynamics in finite systems often terminates in an absorbing state. Yet in large spatially extended systems, the time to reach species extinction (or fixation) becomes exceedingly long. Tuning…
A great number of biological organisms live in aqueous environments. Major evolutionary transitions, including the emergence of life itself, likely occurred in such environments. While the chemical aspects of the role of water in biology…