Question

Succession/resilience/fire ecology: Should ecosystems that are highly resistant to disturbance also be highly resilient, or, would they be inversely related where resistant ecosystems would have low resilience (and vice versa)?   There is no known consistent answer to this in the ecology literature, so providing justification for one position or providing logical arguments for both positions would be perfectly acceptable.

Answer 1

Answer:

• The statement made here is debatable. Both sides are likely to occur.
• The ability of an ecosystem to prevent a disturbance from taking place is called resistance.
• The ability of the ecosystem to recover after a disturbance has occurred is called resilience.
• If the ecosystem is resistant, it has the ability to prevent fluctuations from taking place.
• However, once the change does occur, the ecosystem might or might not be as resilient.
• The resilience arises because of the ability of the ecosystem to revert back to initial conditions.
• However, given that the ecosystem is also resistant, the cause of the fluctuation would be strong enough that the ecosystem wasn't capable of handling.
• This poses the question as to whether the ecosystem might have the ability to handle this change.
• Hence resistance and resilience are independent factors. They are not directly related.

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