IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0101851.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Early Warning Signs in Social-Ecological Networks

Author

Listed:
  • Samir Suweis
  • Paolo D'Odorico

Abstract

A number of social-ecological systems exhibit complex behaviour associated with nonlinearities, bifurcations, and interaction with stochastic drivers. These systems are often prone to abrupt and unexpected instabilities and state shifts that emerge as a discontinuous response to gradual changes in environmental drivers. Predicting such behaviours is crucial to the prevention of or preparation for unwanted regime shifts. Recent research in ecology has investigated early warning signs that anticipate the divergence of univariate ecosystem dynamics from a stable attractor. To date, leading indicators of instability in systems with multiple interacting components have remained poorly investigated. This is a major limitation in the understanding of the dynamics of complex social-ecological networks. Here, we develop a theoretical framework to demonstrate that rising variance—measured, for example, by the maximum element of the covariance matrix of the network—is an effective leading indicator of network instability. We show that its reliability and robustness depend more on the sign of the interactions within the network than the network structure or noise intensity. Mutualistic, scale free and small world networks are less stable than their antagonistic or random counterparts but their instability is more reliably predicted by this leading indicator. These results provide new advances in multidimensional early warning analysis and offer a framework to evaluate the resilience of social-ecological networks.

Suggested Citation

  • Samir Suweis & Paolo D'Odorico, 2014. "Early Warning Signs in Social-Ecological Networks," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(7), pages 1-6, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0101851
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0101851
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0101851
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0101851&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0101851?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. Steven J. Lade & Alessandro Tavoni & Simon A. Levin & Maja Schl�ter, 2013. "Regime shifts in a social-ecological system," GRI Working Papers 105, Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
    2. 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.
    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. Tu, Chengyi & Luo, Jianhong & Fan, Ying & Pan, Xuwei, 2023. "Dimensionality reduction in stochastic complex dynamical networks," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 175(P1).
    2. Monika Egerer & Elsa Anderson, 2020. "Social-Ecological Connectivity to Understand Ecosystem Service Provision across Networks in Urban Landscapes," Land, MDPI, vol. 9(12), pages 1-14, December.

    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. Sergio Currarini & Carmen Marchiori & Alessandro Tavoni, 2016. "Network Economics and the Environment: Insights and Perspectives," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 65(1), pages 159-189, September.
    3. Karimi Rahjerdi, Bahareh & Ramamoorthy, Ramesh & Nazarimehr, Fahimeh & Rajagopal, Karthikeyan & Jafari, Sajad, 2022. "Indicating the synchronization bifurcation points using the early warning signals in two case studies: Continuous and explosive synchronization," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    4. John M Drake & Tobias S Brett & Shiyang Chen & Bogdan I Epureanu & Matthew J Ferrari & Éric Marty & Paige B Miller & Eamon B O’Dea & Suzanne M O’Regan & Andrew W Park & Pejman Rohani, 2019. "The statistics of epidemic transitions," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(5), pages 1-14, May.
    5. Gianluca Fabiani & Nikolaos Evangelou & Tianqi Cui & Juan M. Bello-Rivas & Cristina P. Martin-Linares & Constantinos Siettos & Ioannis G. Kevrekidis, 2024. "Task-oriented machine learning surrogates for tipping points of agent-based models," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-13, December.
    6. James J Elser & Timothy J Elser & Stephen R Carpenter & William A Brock, 2014. "Regime Shift in Fertilizer Commodities Indicates More Turbulence Ahead for Food Security," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(5), pages 1-7, May.
    7. Roland Clift & Sarah Sim & Henry King & Jonathan L. Chenoweth & Ian Christie & Julie Clavreul & Carina Mueller & Leo Posthuma & Anne-Marie Boulay & Rebecca Chaplin-Kramer & Julia Chatterton & Fabrice , 2017. "The Challenges of Applying Planetary Boundaries as a Basis for Strategic Decision-Making in Companies with Global Supply Chains," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-23, February.
    8. Xiaojie Chen & Attila Szolnoki, 2018. "Punishment and inspection for governing the commons in a feedback-evolving game," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(7), pages 1-15, July.
    9. Darrell Jiajie Tay & Chung-I Chou & Sai-Ping Li & Shang You Tee & Siew Ann Cheong, 2016. "Bubbles Are Departures from Equilibrium Housing Markets: Evidence from Singapore and Taiwan," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 11(11), pages 1-13, November.
    10. Fushing, Hsieh & Jordà, Òscar & Beisner, Brianne & McCowan, Brenda, 2014. "Computing systemic risk using multiple behavioral and keystone networks: The emergence of a crisis in primate societies and banks," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 797-806.
    11. Dur, Gaël & Won, Eun-Ji & Han, Jeonghoon & Lee, Jae-Seong & Souissi, Sami, 2021. "An individual-based model for evaluating post-exposure effects of UV-B radiation on zooplankton reproduction," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 441(C).
    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. Simon DeDeo, 2016. "Conflict and Computation on Wikipedia: A Finite-State Machine Analysis of Editor Interactions," Future Internet, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-23, July.
    14. Quentin Remy & Julius Hohlfeld & Maxime Vergès & Yann Le Guen & Jon Gorchon & Grégory Malinowski & Stéphane Mangin & Michel Hehn, 2023. "Accelerating ultrafast magnetization reversal by non-local spin transfer," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-9, December.
    15. Hu, Jiang-Hong & Xue, Ya-Kui & Sun, Gui-Quan & Jin, Zhen & Zhang, Juan, 2016. "Global dynamics of a predator–prey system modeling by metaphysiological approach," Applied Mathematics and Computation, Elsevier, vol. 283(C), pages 369-384.
    16. Jinxiao Duan & Guanwen Zeng & Nimrod Serok & Daqing Li & Efrat Blumenfeld Lieberthal & Hai-Jun Huang & Shlomo Havlin, 2023. "Spatiotemporal dynamics of traffic bottlenecks yields an early signal of heavy congestions," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-11, December.
    17. 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.
    18. Wang, Gang-Jin & Xie, Chi, 2013. "Cross-correlations between Renminbi and four major currencies in the Renminbi currency basket," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 392(6), pages 1418-1428.
    19. Domenico Di Gangi & Fabrizio Lillo & Davide Pirino, 2015. "Assessing systemic risk due to fire sales spillover through maximum entropy network reconstruction," Papers 1509.00607, arXiv.org, revised Jul 2018.
    20. Nils Bertschinger & Oliver Pfante, 2020. "Early Warning Signs of Financial Market Turmoils," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 13(12), pages 1-24, November.

    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:pone00:0101851. 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.