Can an ecosystem be both resilient and resistant and role of biodiversity in ecosystem function and stability biology?
As far as I'm concerned, resistance (remaining unchanged in the face of a disturbance) and resilience (the rate of recovery after a disturbance) are independent properties, so an ecosystem can be both resistant, and resilient. When it comes to the role of diversity, according to the "insurance hypothesis", a diverse ecosystem should be more stable (resistant and resilient). This is due to functional redundancy (different taxa having the same niches), so if one taxon is missing, its nich is covered by another taxon.
Here is a list of articles I recommend:
https://www.nature.com/articles/ismej201491
Article Fundamentals of Microbial Community Resistance and Resilience
Article Yachi S, Loreau M.. Biodiversity and ecosystem productivity ...
Article Resistance, resilience, and redundancy in microbial communities
Article Contrasting resistance of prokaryotic plankton biomass and c...
In general, resistance refers to the ability of a population to withstand the disturbance, whereas resilience refers to the ability to recover after suffering from the disturbance. Both can also occur at the community, population, and individual level. An ecosystem can have high resistance to disturbance, but low resilience, and vice versa.Resilience is the capacity to recover. Resistance is the ability to remain largely unchanged. Ecosystems may be very elastic with some stress events but very vulnerable to others. For example, Grassland ecosystems are very resilient to fire and quickly regrow from underground roots, however, they are highly vulnerable to ploughing. Both resistance and resilience cause an ecosystem to remain relatively unchanged when confronted to a disturbance, but in the case of resistance alone no internal re-organization and succession change is involved. This can lead to collapse of the system when a disturbance threshold is exceeded. Tardigrades are among the most resilient animals known, with individual species able to survive extreme conditions such as exposure to extreme temperatures, extreme pressures air deprivation, radiation, dehydration, and starvation that would quickly kill most other known forms of life. Greater biodiversity in ecosystems, species, and individuals leads to greater stability. As, species with high genetic diversity and many populations that are adapted to a wide variety of conditions are more likely to be able to weather disturbances, disease, and climate change. Overall, biodiversity is very important, because it helps maintain ecosystem stability, which is the ability of an ecosystem to maintain a steady state, even after a stress or disturbance has occurred. Biodiversity boosts ecosystem productivity where each species, no matter how small, all has an important role to play. As a larger number of plant species means a greater variety of crops. Greater species diversity ensures natural sustainability for all life forms. Increasing species diversity can influence ecosystem functions such as productivity by increasing the likelihood that species will use complementary resources and can also increase the likelihood that a particularly productive or efficient species is present in the community. Biologically diverse communities are also more likely to contain species that confer resilience to that ecosystem because as a community accumulates species, there is a higher chance of any one of them having traits that enable them to adapt to a changing environment.
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