IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0062033.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Catastrophic Collapse Can Occur without Early Warning: Examples of Silent Catastrophes in Structured Ecological Models

Author

Listed:
  • Maarten C Boerlijst
  • Thomas Oudman
  • André M de Roos

Abstract

Catastrophic and sudden collapses of ecosystems are sometimes preceded by early warning signals that potentially could be used to predict and prevent a forthcoming catastrophe. Universality of these early warning signals has been proposed, but no formal proof has been provided. Here, we show that in relatively simple ecological models the most commonly used early warning signals for a catastrophic collapse can be silent. We underpin the mathematical reason for this phenomenon, which involves the direction of the eigenvectors of the system. Our results demonstrate that claims on the universality of early warning signals are not correct, and that catastrophic collapses can occur without prior warning. In order to correctly predict a collapse and determine whether early warning signals precede the collapse, detailed knowledge of the mathematical structure of the approaching bifurcation is necessary. Unfortunately, such knowledge is often only obtained after the collapse has already occurred.

Suggested Citation

  • Maarten C Boerlijst & Thomas Oudman & André M de Roos, 2013. "Catastrophic Collapse Can Occur without Early Warning: Examples of Silent Catastrophes in Structured Ecological Models," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(4), pages 1-6, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0062033
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0062033
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0062033
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0062033&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0062033?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John M. Drake & Blaine D. Griffen, 2010. "Early warning signals of extinction in deteriorating environments," Nature, Nature, vol. 467(7314), pages 456-459, September.
    2. Annelies J. Veraart & Elisabeth J. Faassen & Vasilis Dakos & Egbert H. van Nes & Miquel Lürling & Marten Scheffer, 2012. "Correction: Corrigendum: Recovery rates reflect distance to a tipping point in a living system," Nature, Nature, vol. 484(7394), pages 404-404, April.
    3. Marten Scheffer & Jordi Bascompte & William A. Brock & Victor Brovkin & Stephen R. Carpenter & Vasilis Dakos & Hermann Held & Egbert H. van Nes & Max Rietkerk & George Sugihara, 2009. "Early-warning signals for critical transitions," Nature, Nature, vol. 461(7260), pages 53-59, September.
    4. Annelies J. Veraart & Elisabeth J. Faassen & Vasilis Dakos & Egbert H. van Nes & Miquel Lürling & Marten Scheffer, 2012. "Recovery rates reflect distance to a tipping point in a living system," Nature, Nature, vol. 481(7381), pages 357-359, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Abram, Joseph J. & Dyke, James G., 2018. "Structural Loop Analysis of Complex Ecological Systems," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 333-342.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Richter, Andries & Dakos, Vasilis, 2015. "Profit fluctuations signal eroding resilience of natural resources," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 12-21.
    2. Christian Meisel & Andreas Klaus & Christian Kuehn & Dietmar Plenz, 2015. "Critical Slowing Down Governs the Transition to Neuron Spiking," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(2), pages 1-20, February.
    3. William A Brock & Stephen R Carpenter, 2012. "Early Warnings of Regime Shift When the Ecosystem Structure Is Unknown," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(9), pages 1-10, September.
    4. Tatiana Baumuratova & Simona Dobre & Thierry Bastogne & Thomas Sauter, 2013. "Switch of Sensitivity Dynamics Revealed with DyGloSA Toolbox for Dynamical Global Sensitivity Analysis as an Early Warning for System's Critical Transition," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(12), pages 1-12, December.
    5. Ryan D Batt & Tarsha Eason & Ahjond Garmestani, 2019. "Time scale of resilience loss: Implications for managing critical transitions in water quality," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(10), pages 1-19, October.
    6. Mathilde Maîtrot & Geof Wood & Joe Devine, 2021. "Understanding resilience: Lessons from lived experiences of extreme poverty in Bangladesh," Development Policy Review, Overseas Development Institute, vol. 39(6), pages 894-910, November.
    7. Xing, Kai & Yang, Xiaoguang, 2020. "Predicting default rates by capturing critical transitions in the macroeconomic system," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 32(C).
    8. James Tan & Siew Ann Cheong, 2016. "The Regime Shift Associated with the 2004–2008 US Housing Market Bubble," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(9), pages 1-8, September.
    9. Navid Moghadam, Nastaran & Nazarimehr, Fahimeh & Jafari, Sajad & Sprott, Julien C., 2020. "Studying the performance of critical slowing down indicators in a biological system with a period-doubling route to chaos," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 544(C).
    10. Vishwesha Guttal & Srinivas Raghavendra & Nikunj Goel & Quentin Hoarau, 2016. "Lack of Critical Slowing Down Suggests that Financial Meltdowns Are Not Critical Transitions, yet Rising Variability Could Signal Systemic Risk," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(1), pages 1-20, January.
    11. Lu, Jinfeng & Dimov, Dimo, 2023. "A system dynamics modelling of entrepreneurship and growth within firms," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 38(3).
    12. Martin Lindegren & Vasilis Dakos & Joachim P Gröger & Anna Gårdmark & Georgs Kornilovs & Saskia A Otto & Christian Möllmann, 2012. "Early Detection of Ecosystem Regime Shifts: A Multiple Method Evaluation for Management Application," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(7), pages 1-9, July.
    13. Vasilis Dakos & Stephen R Carpenter & William A Brock & Aaron M Ellison & Vishwesha Guttal & Anthony R Ives & Sonia Kéfi & Valerie Livina & David A Seekell & Egbert H van Nes & Marten Scheffer, 2012. "Methods for Detecting Early Warnings of Critical Transitions in Time Series Illustrated Using Simulated Ecological Data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(7), pages 1-20, July.
    14. Manfred Füllsack & Daniel Reisinger & Marie Kapeller & Georg Jäger, 2022. "Early warning signals from the periphery," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 5(1), pages 665-685, May.
    15. William A. Brock & Steven N. Durlauf, 2015. "On Sturdy Policy Evaluation," The Journal of Legal Studies, University of Chicago Press, vol. 44(S2), pages 447-473.
    16. Kiran D’Souza & Bogdan I Epureanu & Mercedes Pascual, 2015. "Forecasting Bifurcations from Large Perturbation Recoveries in Feedback Ecosystems," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(9), pages 1-19, September.
    17. Yang, Anji & Wang, Hao & Yuan, Sanling, 2023. "Tipping time in a stochastic Leslie predator–prey model," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    18. Dominique A Cowart & Miguel Pinheiro & Olivier Mouchel & Marion Maguer & Jacques Grall & Jacques Miné & Sophie Arnaud-Haond, 2015. "Metabarcoding Is Powerful yet Still Blind: A Comparative Analysis of Morphological and Molecular Surveys of Seagrass Communities," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(2), pages 1-26, February.
    19. Orozco-Fuentes, S. & Griffiths, G. & Holmes, M.J. & Ettelaie, R. & Smith, J. & Baggaley, A.W. & Parker, N.G., 2019. "Early warning signals in plant disease outbreaks," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 393(C), pages 12-19.
    20. Tobias Brett & Marco Ajelli & Quan-Hui Liu & Mary G Krauland & John J Grefenstette & Willem G van Panhuis & Alessandro Vespignani & John M Drake & Pejman Rohani, 2020. "Detecting critical slowing down in high-dimensional epidemiological systems," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(3), pages 1-19, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0062033. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.