TY - JOUR
T1 - Interpreting resilience through long-term ecology
T2 - Potential insights in western mediterranean landscapes
AU - Gil-Romera, Graciela
AU - López-Merino, Lourdes
AU - Carrión, José S.
AU - González-Sampériz, Penélope
AU - Martín-Puertas, Celia
AU - Sáez, José A.López
AU - Fernández, Santiago
AU - Antón, Mercedes García
AU - Stefanova, Vania
PY - 2010
Y1 - 2010
N2 - Many studies on ecosystem resilience often lack sufficiently long time scales to determine potential cycles of landscape response. In this paper we review some examples on how palaeoecology has provided an important aid to modern ecology in understanding ecosystem resilience. We focus some of these ideas on two Holocene sites from Southern Spain (Zoñar and Gádor) where current plant diversity is very high. Both sites presented resilient pattern at centennial and millennial time scales with several stable phases. Vegetation in Zoñar proved to be very sensitive to environmental changes, especially moisture availability while forest in Gádor responded elastically to fire and drought to a threshold level when the forest recede to a more open landscape. We conclude that any serious attempt to understand ecosystem resilience should include the long-term perspective.
AB - Many studies on ecosystem resilience often lack sufficiently long time scales to determine potential cycles of landscape response. In this paper we review some examples on how palaeoecology has provided an important aid to modern ecology in understanding ecosystem resilience. We focus some of these ideas on two Holocene sites from Southern Spain (Zoñar and Gádor) where current plant diversity is very high. Both sites presented resilient pattern at centennial and millennial time scales with several stable phases. Vegetation in Zoñar proved to be very sensitive to environmental changes, especially moisture availability while forest in Gádor responded elastically to fire and drought to a threshold level when the forest recede to a more open landscape. We conclude that any serious attempt to understand ecosystem resilience should include the long-term perspective.
KW - Biodiversity
KW - Holocene
KW - Iberian peninsula
KW - Landscape dynamics
KW - Palaeoecology
KW - Palynological methods
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U2 - 10.2174/1874213001003020043
DO - 10.2174/1874213001003020043
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:79960760132
SN - 1874-2130
VL - 3
SP - 43
EP - 53
JO - Open Ecology Journal
JF - Open Ecology Journal
IS - SPEC.ISS.1
ER -