Multidimensionality of Ecological Stability

Ecological stability comprises a fundamental property of ecosystems that has hugely important, yet understudied, implications for both ecological theory and the management of natural resources. A challenging aspect of stability is its multidimensionality, including asymptotic stability, resilience, resistance, robustness, persistence and variability. However, few studies that measured multiple components of ecological stability simultaneously considered them as independent and therefore analyzed them separately. I have explored the mechanisms underpinning relationships among components of stability and whether there are any general features of these relationships that are common across ecosystems. This project aims to address these important and pressing research needs by linking both theoretical research and empirical experiments in the laboratory and the field to address the following key research questions:

• What are the theoretical relationships among individual components of ecological stability and do they vary with the strength of perturbations?
• Does environmental context moderate relationships among components of ecological stability?
• Do different types of perturbations alter the relationships among components of ecological stability in distinct ways?