Critical transitions in biodiversity: From foundations to detections and warning

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Helmut Hillebrand
• Subject Area: Ecology and Biodiversity of Animals and Ecosystems, Organismic Interactions ; Ecology and Biodiversity of Plants and Ecosystems ; Operations Management and Computer Science for Business Administration
• Term: since 2024
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 538676255

Global and local biodiversity are massively altered by direct and indirect anthropogenic pressures such as fragmentation, exploitation, pollution, and climate change. Mitigating further transformation requires knowledge of discontinuities in the biodiversity response to these pressures. Yet we lack fundamental understanding if critical transitions prevail leading to unprecedented biodiversity loss or shifts towards novel compositions of communities and regional species pools and what early warning signals exist in order to trigger a regulatory response. In this project, we consecutively address this question in three workpackages (WPs). WP1 will survey how transitions are conceptualized in different disciplines (physics, math, engineering, ecology). A systematic literature review on the application of these different concepts in the context of biodiversity change will be conducted to assess their suitability and effectiveness. WP2 uses simulated and real data (the latter from a pan-European network on fish and macroinvertebrate data) to assess how well critical transitions can be detected, how they might be masked by multiple feedbacks and staggered (time-delayed) responses in species, and which of the methods from WP1 gives most reliable estimates for the occurrence and positioning of critical biodiversity transitions. Finally, WP 3 will leverage recent improvements in the Value of Information (VOI) theory to link these estimates of threshold transgressions to decision making with the aim of prioritizing areas for marine biodiversity conservation. VOI assesses and quantifies the benefits of additional data or insights for decision making, at the risk of delays leading to more deteriorated status of the environment. The current project is unique in binding expertise from a wide range of disciplines towards the highly relevant question of how to predict and prevent disproportionate changes in biodiversity.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Co-Investigator: Professor Dr. Thilo Gross