Speaker
Description
The increasing availability of Earth observation (EO) and ecosystem flux time series has led to rapid growth in the use of “resilience metrics” to characterize ecosystem dynamics under global change. Metrics such as resistance, recovery, variability, autocorrelation, and memory are increasingly applied across ecosystems and spatial scales, often with the aim of identifying vulnerable systems or early warning signals of change. Often, the use of such metrics is in the context of anticipating so-called “tipping points”. However, these metrics are frequently interpreted interchangeably despite representing different ecological concepts, statistical concepts, and temporal properties of the observations itself.
In this talk, we examine how resilience-related metrics derived from EOs and flux data are conceptualized and applied across the literature. We distinguish between metrics that explicitly describe ecosystem responses to disturbances (e.g. resistance and recovery following drought or heat extremes) and metrics that characterize intrinsic temporal dynamics without reference to specific events (e.g. variability, autocorrelation, or “memory”). We argue that these distinct interpretations are often conflated, complicating ecological interpretation and comparisons across studies. We also consider the data properties of (partially incomplete) observations, short time series (on a decadal scale), and in case of EOs only multiday sampling.
We aim to outline how disturbance regimes and ecosystem functional structure may jointly shape observed temporal dynamics. In particular, we explore the potential role of plant traits and functional diversity in mediating resistance, recovery, and temporal persistence in ecosystem signals. Rather than proposing a single definition of resilience, this talk aims to clarify the conceptual relationships among commonly used metrics and highlight key challenges in linking EO-derived indicators to ecological mechanisms.
| Status Group | Doctoral Researcher |
|---|---|
| FOR TALKS: Poster Presentation Option | Undecided/No preference |