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Dynamic properties of complex adaptive ecosystems: implications for the sustainability of service provision

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Abstract

Predicting environmental change and its impacts on ecosystem goods and services at local to global scales remains a significant challenge for the international scientific community. This is due largely to the fact that the Earth is made up of open, coupled, complex, interactive and non-linear dynamic systems that are inherently unpredictable. Uncertainties over interactions and feedbacks between natural and human drivers of environmental change (operating at different spatial and temporal scales) can compound intrinsic intractable difficulties faced by plural societies aiming at sustainable management of ecosystems. Social-Ecological Systems (SES) theory addresses these strongly coupled and complex characteristics of social and ecological systems. It can provide a useful framework for articulating contrasting drivers and pressures on ecosystems and associated service provision, spanning different temporalities and provenances. Here, system vulnerabilities (defined as exposure to threats affecting ability of an SES to cope in delivering relevant functions), can arise from both endogenous and exogenous factors across multiple time-scales. Vulnerabilities may also take contrasting forms, ranging from transient shocks or disruptions, through to chronic or enduring pressures. Recognising these diverse conditions, four distinct dynamic properties emerge (resilience, stability, durability and robustness), under which it is possible to maintain system function and, hence, achieve sustainability.

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Acknowledgements

This work has been supported by the European Commission FP 6 Coordination Action Project RUBICODE (Rationalising Biodiversity Conservation in Dynamic Ecosystems) under contract number 036890, see www.rubicode.net. RUBICODE is an endorsed project of the Global Land Project of the IGBP. The authors are indebted to their colleagues in the RUBICODE project for their valuable contribution in framing the concepts outlined in the paper. Tatiana Kluvankova-Oravska and Veronika Chobotova acknowledge the support of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (CETIP -IF SAS) and the SPECTRA Centre of Excellence financed under the European Fund for Regional Development.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Geography, University of Southampton, Highfield, Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK

    Terence P. Dawson

  2. Centre for the Study of Environmental Change & Sustainability, School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, UK

    Mark D. A. Rounsevell

  3. Institute for Forecasting, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava, Slovak Republic

    Tatiana Kluvánková-Oravská & Veronika Chobotová

  4. Science & Technology Policy Research (SPRU), University of Sussex, Brighton, BN1 9QE, UK

    Andrew Stirling

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  1. Terence P. Dawson
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  2. Mark D. A. Rounsevell
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  3. Tatiana Kluvánková-Oravská
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  4. Veronika Chobotová
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  5. Andrew Stirling
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Correspondence to Terence P. Dawson.

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Dawson, T.P., Rounsevell, M.D.A., Kluvánková-Oravská, T. et al. Dynamic properties of complex adaptive ecosystems: implications for the sustainability of service provision. Biodivers Conserv 19, 2843–2853 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-010-9892-z

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