Ecological Stability - Types of Ecological Stability

Types of Ecological Stability

Local stability indicates that a system is stable over small short-lived disturbances, while global stability indicates a system highly resistant to change in species composition and/or food web dynamics. ,happening in a short time period. Resistance is a measure of how little the variable of interest changes in response to external pressures. Inertia (or persistence) implies that the living system is able to resist external fluctuations. In the context of changing ecosystems in post-glacial North America, E.C. Pielou remarked at the outset of her overview,

"It obviously takes considerable time for mature vegetation to become established on newly exposed ice scoured rocks or glacial till...it also takes considerable time for whole ecosystems to change, with their numerous interdependent plant species, the habitats these create, and the animals that live in the habitats. Therefore, climatically caused fluctuations in ecological communities are a damped, smoothed-out version of the climatic fluctuations that cause them."

Read more about this topic:  Ecological Stability

Famous quotes containing the words types of, types, ecological and/or stability:

    “... there are two types of happiness and I have chosen that of the murderers. For I am happy. There was a time when I thought I had reached the limit of distress. Beyond that limit, there is a sterile and magnificent happiness.”
    —Albert Camus (1913–1960)

    “The American man is a very simple and cheap mechanism. The American woman I find a complicated and expensive one. Contrasts of feminine types are possible. I am not absolutely sure that there is more than one American man.”
    —Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)

    “The hatred of the youth culture for adult society is not a disinterested judgment but a terror-ridden refusal to be hooked into the, if you will, ecological chain of breathing, growing, and dying. It is the demand, in other words, to remain children.”
    —Midge Decter (b. 1927)

    “The message you give your children when you discipline with love is “I care too much about you to let you misbehave. I care enough about you that I’m willing to spend time and effort to help you learn what is appropriate.” All children need the security and stability of food, shelter, love, and protection, but unless they also receive effective and appropriate discipline, they won’t feel secure.”
    —Stephanie Marston (20th century)