荷兰瓦赫宁根大学Marten Scheffer研究组用退出时间来衡量生态恢复力。该研究成果发表在2021年6月11日出版的《科学》杂志上。

他们展示了如何根据平均预期寿命来估计生态弹性，并说明这种自然的可变性。他们使用时间序列来拟合捕获随机和确定性分量的模型。然后使用该模型来估计从吸引力盆地的平均退出时间。在高分辨率时间序列变得越来越可用的时候，这种方法提供了一个新的角度来预测关键转变的机会。

研究人员表示，生态弹性是系统仍然可以恢复到其原始状态的最大扰动的量级。然而，转换到另一种状态通常可能是由一系列较小的协同扰动而不是单个大扰动引起的。

附：英文原文

Title: Exit time as a measure of ecological resilience

Author: Babak M. S. Arani, Stephen R. Carpenter, Leo Lahti, Egbert H. van Nes, Marten Scheffer

Issue&Volume: 2021/06/11

Abstract: Ecological resilience is the magnitude of the largest perturbation from which a system can still recover to its original state. However, a transition into another state may often be invoked by a series of minor synergistic perturbations rather than a single big one. We show how resilience can be estimated in terms of average life expectancy, accounting for this natural regime of variability. We use time series to fit a model that captures the stochastic as well as the deterministic components. The model is then used to estimate the mean exit time from the basin of attraction. This approach offers a fresh angle to anticipating the chance of a critical transition at a time when high-resolution time series are becoming increasingly available.

DOI: 10.1126/science.aay4895

Source: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/372/6547/eaay4895