Predicting and Preventing Ecosystem Decline

Researchers are developing a framework to help predict and prevent the approach of rapid, harmful and difficult-to-reverse changes in ecosystems.

This research is Completed

Overview Te Tirohanga Whānui

In this project, led by Professor Jason Tylianakis of the University of Canterbury, researchers are aiming to reverse degradation across a range of ecosystems and nudge these systems towards a healthy, self-reinforcing state.

Once an ecosystem reaches a tipping point, it can be costly or unfeasible to reverse – for example the loss of peat-forming species in wetlands, and the loss of soil structure and quality following intensive agriculture.

A key aspect of this BioHeritage Challenge project is understanding the processes leading to these tipping points in socio-ecological systems, and using that knowledge to develop generic, widely applicable tools to proactively manage and sustain healthy ecosystems.

Mātauranga Māori (Māori knowledge) is critical to the project which is contributing to BioHeritage’s goal of creating resilient and thriving ecosystems that New Zealanders are proud of.

Research is being co-designed with key Ngāi Tahu staff members who are using their indigenous knowledge of restoring populations and sustaining harvests of mahinga kai (food gathering) to help shape the research priorities.

Specifically, research on the restoration of īnanga (whitebait) and black swan egg harvests is being co-developed with Māori knowledge-holders as part of this work and another BioHeritage Challenge project – taking a biocultural approach to restoring New Zealand’s biodiversity.

Highlights Ngā Mahi Whakahirahira

The project team has distilled complex concepts around tipping points into a policy brief that outlines approaches that can help regional and central government to manage tipping points and drive positive ecosystem change.

Addressing cutting-edge problems in ecological tipping points has led to publication of the team’s research in international ecological journals such as Ecology Letters and the Journal of Ecology.

The team’s research has been integrated with a Ministry of Business Innovation and Employment Endeavour Project: Our lakes’ health: past, present and future, Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua.

In addition, lake sediment samples and analytical techniques have been shared with the Lakes380 team, and researchers have conducted a collaborative analysis of ecological tipping points in lakes.

Looking for more information?

If you’re looking for any outputs (papers, data etc) from this project that you don’t see on this page please visit our data repository.

Research Partners Ngā hoa pātui rangahau

Resource outputs from this programme

Publication

Biocultural Hysteresis Inhibits Adaptation to Environmental Change

Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLC) often use natural resources as both a reason and mechanism for environmental management, yet a number of environmental, social,…
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Publication

Building biocultural approaches into Aotearoa – New Zealand’s conservation future

Indigenous peoples’ roles in conservation are important because they offer alternate perspectives and knowledge centred on the quality of the human–environment relationship. Here, we present…
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Publication

Influences of fire–vegetation feedbacks and post‐fire recovery rates on forest landscape vulnerability to altered fire regimes

In the context of ongoing climatic warming, forest landscapes face increasing risk of conversion to non‐forest vegetation through alteration of their fire regimes and their…
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Publication

Symmetric assembly and disassembly processes in an ecological network

The processes whereby ecological networks emerge, persist and decay throughout ecosystem development are largely unknown. Here we study networks of plant and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal…
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Policy Briefing

Vulnerability of freshwater ecosystems to tipping points

Identifying ecosystem characteristics that underpin vulnerability will facilitate more directed management and better policy to protect against tipping points. University of Canterbury Professor of Freshwater…
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Policy Briefing

Planning for tipping points and enhancing resilience in production landscapes.

KEY MESSAGES 1. A social-ecological system, which emerges when people interact with the natural environment, can cross a tipping point to a self-reinforcing degraded state,…
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Publication

Ecological Networks Across Environmental Gradients

Ecological networks have a long history in ecology, and a recent increase in network analyses across environmental gradients has revealed important changes in their structure,…
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Publication

Positive feedbacks to fire-driven deforestation following human colonization of the South Island of New Zealand

We show that the burning of beech forests initiates a positive feedback cycle whereby the loss of microclimatic amelioration under the dense forest canopy and…
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Publication

Landowners’ Perspectives on Coordinated, Landscape-Level Invasive Species Control: The Role of Social and Ecological Context

We conducted in person and mail surveys of 68 landowners in and adjacent to the area of a proposed invasive predator control program in New…
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Publication

Indigenous peoples: Conservation paradox

The customs and culture of indigenous peoples often reflect a deep knowledge of local biodiversity that leads to ecologically responsible behavior. As a result, conservationists…
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Publication

Fire–vegetation feedbacks and alternative states: common mechanisms of temperate forest vulnerability to fire in southern South America and New Zealand

For two regions, we address the following questions: 1. What are the major plant species, physiognomic types and functional types characteristic of pyrophytic versus pyrophobic…
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Publication

Alien and native plant richness and abundance respond to different environmental drivers across multiple gravel floodplain ecosystems

Alien and native richness and cover were shaped by different variables, so managing the ecosystem (e.g. flow regime) to mitigate aliens would not necessarily promote…
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Publication

Microbes in the Anthropocene: spillover of agriculturally selected bacteria and their impact on natural ecosystems

We hypothesize that intensified agriculture selects for certain taxa and genes, which then ‘spill over’ into adjacent unmodified areas and generate a halo of genetic…
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