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Diatom flickering prior to regime shift

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A Brief Communications Arising to this article was published on 26 June 2013

Abstract

ARISING FROM R. Wang et al. Nature 492, 419–422 (2012)10.1038/nature11655

Potential early warning signals for regime shifts are studied intensively in the field of ecology1,2,3,4. Wang and colleagues1 investigated changes in the sediment diatom composition of Lake Erhai, China, and concluded that a regime shift in diatom assemblages that occurred around 2001 was preceded by flickering behaviour for 10 to 30 years. We propose that their results may be more reflective of their data processing than of the diatom data. Although flickering behaviour before regime shifts may be observed in some palaeoenvironmental records, we question whether this behaviour applies to diatoms in Lake Erhai. There is a Reply to this Brief Communication Arising by Wang, R. et al. Nature 498, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature12273 (2013).

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Figure 1: Simulated data processing and early warning signals.
Figure 2: Re-analysis of potential early warning signals compiled from the diatom community in Lake Erhai.

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References

  1. Wang, R. et al. Flickering gives early warning signals of a critical transition to a eutrophic lake state. Nature 492, 419–422 (2012)

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University, Frederiksborgvej 399, DK-4000 Roskilde, Denmark,

    Jacob Carstensen

  2. Department of Biology, University of Bergen, Thormøhlensgate 53 A, N-5006 Bergen, Norway,

    Richard J. Telford & H. John B. Birks

Authors
  1. Jacob Carstensen
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  2. Richard J. Telford
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  3. H. John B. Birks
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Contributions

J.C. instigated the writing of the Comment. J.C. and R.J.T. carried out statistical analyses. J.C., R.J.T. and H.J.B.B. discussed the results and contributed to writing the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jacob Carstensen.

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Carstensen, J., Telford, R. & Birks, H. Diatom flickering prior to regime shift. Nature 498, E11–E12 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature12272

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