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Ecosystem Resistance and Resilience

Definition

Ecosystem resistance refers to an ecosystem's ability to maintain its functional and structural characteristics in spite of disturbances or changes. Resilience is an ecosystem's ability to recover after disturbances or changes.

Analogy

Think about a rubber band being stretched (disturbance). Resistance is how far it can be stretched without breaking while resilience is how quickly it snaps back into its original shape after being released.

Related terms

Disturbance regime: Refers to patterns of disturbance events like fire, flooding, windstorms etc., over time and space within an ecosystem. These disturbances can test both resistance and resilience of ecosystems.

Succession: The process by which a biological community evolves over time following a disturbance. It shows how resilient certain ecosystems can be as they recover.

Biodiversity: The variety of life in a particular habitat or ecosystem. Higher biodiversity often contributes to greater resistance and resilience as there are more species to potentially fill any gaps left by disturbances.