Foundations of Ecological Resilience
496 pages
6 x 9
80 illustrations
Book Description
Ecological resilience provides a theoretical foundation for understanding how complex systems adapt to and recover from localized disturbances like hurricanes, fires, pest outbreaks, and floods, as well as large-scale perturbations such as climate change. Ecologists have developed resilience theory over the past three decades in an effort to explain surprising and nonlinear dynamics of complex adaptive systems. Resilience theory is especially important to environmental scientists for its role in underpinning
adaptive management approaches to ecosystem and resource management.
Foundations of Ecological Resilience is a collection of the most important articles on the subject of ecological resilience—those writings that have defined and developed basic concepts in the field and help explain its importance and meaning for scientists and researchers.
The book’s three sections cover articles that have shaped or defined the concepts and theories of resilience, including key papers that broke new conceptual ground and contributed novel ideas to the field; examples that demonstrate ecological resilience in a range of ecosystems; and articles that present practical methods for understanding and managing nonlinear ecosystem dynamics.
Foundations of Ecological Resilience is an important contribution to our collective understanding of resilience and an invaluable resource for students and scholars in ecology, wildlife ecology, conservation biology, sustainability, environmental science, public policy, and related fields.
Review Quotes
"Foundations of Ecological Resilience is a set key papers that capture the major conceptual advances and their application in the development of resilience science. Gunderson, Allen, and Holling provide overview chapters that place these classics in context. This volume is essential reading for students and scholars applying resilience theory to modern issues."
F. Stuart Chapin III, University of Alaska, Fairbanks
"It is exciting to hold in one's hands a single volume containing thirty-five years of the key article s on ecological resilience. This book will help serious students to understand the foundations, and the cutting edges, of research on ecological resilience."
Elinor Ostrom, Indiana University and Arizona State University
"This is a book for our turbulent times. It is about expecting the unexpected. It marks a transformation away from misleading equilibrial theories of ecology and economics that still dominate today. While realistic about the magnitude of the ecological problems humans face, Foundations of Ecological Resilience offers principles to guide the management and governance of the unpredictable ecosystems in which we live."
Nick Abel , CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Canberra, Australia
"Buzz Holling's seminal 1973 paper revolutionized the theory of management of environmental systems, emphasizing forces that confer resilience in the face of disturbance. Resilience theory has matured into a movement in ecological and economic theory and fundamentally influencing management. This is an essential collection of key papers in the evolution toward a science of sustainability. "
Simon Levin, Princton University
"I will start by saying I wish this book had been published ten years earlier—it would have saved a lot of arguments over what terms such as resilience, stability, elasticity, resistance all mean. ... So, too, will this volume be a classic."
Quarterly Review of Biology
Contents
Introduction: Why Resilience? Why Now? L. Gunderson and C. Allen
Part I. Concepts and Theory
Commentary on Part I Articles
-Article 1. Resilience and stability of ecological systems
-Article 2. Engineering resilience vs. ecological resilience
-Article 3. The resilience of terrestrial ecosystems: local surprise and global change
-Article 4. Regime shifts, resilience and biodiversity in ecosystem management
-Article 5. Biological Diversity, Ecosystems, and the Human Scale
-Article 6. Ecological resilience, biodiversity and scale
Part II. Ecological Examples
Commentary on Part II Articles
-Article 7. Catastrophes, phase shifts, and large-scale degradation of a Caribbean coral reef
-Article 8. Sea otters and kelp forests in Alaska: generality and variation in a community ecological paradigm
-Article 9. Body mass patterns predict invasions and extinctions in transforming landscapes
Part III. Empirics and Models
Commentary on Part III Articles
-Article 10. Resource Science: the nurture of an infant
-Article 11. Lessons for Ecological Policy Design: a case study of ecosystem management
-Article 12. Qualitative analysis of insect outbreak systems the spruce budworm and forest
-Conclusion: Evolution of an Idea—The Past, Present and Future of Ecological Resilience
Selected Bibliography
Permissions and Original Sources
