B11I:
Terrestrial Ecosystems in a Time of Change: Thresholds, Tipping Points, and Critical Transitions I

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Session ID#: 31763

Session Description:
Myriad systems maintain thresholds, tipping points, and critical transitions that help explain how they respond to changes in their environment. Terrestrial ecosystems in particular show responses to global change that can be both dramatic and difficult to predict due to strong heterogeneity across temporal and spatial scales. Threshold-based concepts have significantly aided our predictive capacity regarding the controls over terrestrial ecosystem structure and function, yet our understanding of how biotic and abiotic drivers interact to regulate systems’ responses – as well as ways to forecast the impending responses – remain limited. Here we synthesize a contemporary understanding of terrestrial ecosystem responses to change using a framework of thresholds, tipping points, and critical transitions. Enhanced knowledge of the patterns and mechanisms that precede and dictate terrestrial responses is of the utmost importance, and the systems approaches explored here offer a powerful way forward to considering and anticipating change.
Primary Convener:  Sasha Reed, U.S. Geological Survey, Southwest Biological Science Center, Moab, UT, United States
Conveners:  Josep Penuelas, Centre for Ecological Research and Forestry Applications, Cerdanyola, Barcelona, Spain, Nathan G G McDowell, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, United States and Osvaldo Sala, Arizona State University, School of Life Sciences, Tempe, AZ, United States
Chairs:  Sasha Reed, U.S. Geological Survey, Southwest Biological Science Center, Moab, UT, United States, Osvaldo Sala, Arizona State University, School of Life Sciences, Tempe, AZ, United States and Josep Penuelas, Global Ecology Unit CREAF-CSIC-UAB, Barcelona Bellaterra, Spain
OSPA Liaison:  Sasha Reed, U.S. Geological Survey, Southwest Biological Science Center, Moab, UT, United States
Index Terms:

0414 Biogeochemical cycles, processes, and modeling [BIOGEOSCIENCES]
0429 Climate dynamics [BIOGEOSCIENCES]
0439 Ecosystems, structure and dynamics [BIOGEOSCIENCES]
0476 Plant ecology [BIOGEOSCIENCES]

Abstracts Submitted to this Session:

Plant responses, climate pivot points, and trade-offs in water-limited ecosystems (Invited) (291368)
Seth M Munson, U.S. Geological Survey, Southwest Biological Science Center, Flagstaff, AZ, United States and Erin Bunting, Michigan State University, Department of Geography, Environment, and Spatial Sciences, East Lansing, MI, United States
The belowground frontier is key to understanding terrestrial ecosystem responses to global change (Invited) (287509)
David Scott Mackay, University at Buffalo, Department of Geography, Buffalo, NY, United States, Charlotte Grossiord, WSL Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, Birmensdorf, Switzerland, Daniel M Johnson, University of Idaho, Forest, Rangeland, and Fire Sciences, Moscow, ID, United States, Nathan G G McDowell, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, United States, Phil Savoy, USGS, Reson, VA, United States and John Sperry, University of Utah, School of Biological Sciences, Salt Lake City, UT, United States
Recent drought-induced decline of forests along a water-balance tipping point for ecosystems in western Canada (278074)
Edward Huntingdon Hogg and Michael Michaelian, Natural Resources Canada - Canadian Forest Service, Edmonton, AB, Canada
Drought sensitivity changes over the last century at the North American savanna-forest boundary (254453)
Kelly Heilman, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, United States and Jason S McLachlan, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, United States
Decadal-scale ecosystem memory reveals interactive effects of drought and insect defoliation on boreal forest productivity (232607)
Malcolm Itter, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, UNITED STATES, Loïc D'Orangeville, University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, QC, Canada, Andria Dawson, Mount Royal University, Calgary, AB, Canada, Daniel Kneeshaw, University of Quebec at Montreal, Centre for Forest Research, Montreal, QC, Canada and Andrew O Finley, Michigan State University, Department of Forestry and Geography, East Lansing, MI, United States
To Tip or Not to Tip: The Case of the Congo Basin Rainforest Realm (279521)
Stephan Pietsch1, Johannes E Bednar1, Brian D Fath2 and Paul A. Winter3, (1)IIASA International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, ESM, Laxenburg, Austria, (2)Towson University, Biological Sciences, Towson, United States, (3)University of KwaZulu-Natal, Mathematics, Durban, South Africa
Carbon cycling at the tipping point: Does ecosystem structure predict resistance to disturbance? (214182)
Christopher Michael Gough, Virginia Commonwealth University, Biology, Richmond, VA, United States, Ben P Bond-Lamberty, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, College Park, United States, Ellen Stuart-Haentjens, US Geological Survey, California Water Science Center, Menlo Park, United States, Jeff Atkins, USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station, Hot Springs National, AR, United States, Lisa Haber, Virginia Commonwealth University, Biology, Richmond, United States and Robert Timothy Fahey, University of Connecticut, Natural Resources and the Environment, Storrs, United States
Climate limits across space and time on European forest structure (208654)
Adam La Salle Moreno1, Mathias Neumann2 and Hubert Hasenauer2, (1)NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, United States, (2)University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, Institute of Silviculture, Department of Forest and Soil Sciences, Vienna, Austria

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