Energy Flow, Nutrient Cycling, and Ecosystem Resilience

Abstract

The resilience, defined here as the speed with which a system returns to equilibrium state following a perturbation, is investigated for both food web energy models and nutrient cycling models. Previous simulation studies of food web energy models have shown that resilience increases as the flux of energy through the food web per unit amount of energy in the steady state web increases. Studies of nutrient cycling models have shown that resilience increases as the mean number of cycles that nutrient (or other mineral) atoms make before leaving the system decreases. In the present study these conclusions are verified analytically for general ecosystem models. The behavior of resilience in food web energy models and nutrient cycling models is a reflection of the time that a given unit, whether of energy or matter, spends in the steady state system. The shorter this residence time is, the more resilient the system is.