Ecosystem Stability

Ecosystem stability :-
Ecosystem :- An ecosystem is a functional unit consisting of all the

living beings of an area and the non-living components of their
environment, interacting to form a stable system.
Ecosystem stability :- The ability of an ecosystem to maintain it’s
structure and function over long periods of time and despite
disturbances is knows as ecosystem stability.
All ecosystems are stable systems. This means that they maintain a
natural balance. An ecosystem involves the flows of nutrients and
energy (in the form of food). If the organisms Having in an ecosystem
use up nutrients, like nitrogen, from their environment, without
replenishing them, soon the system will collapse. However, a balance
is maintained between the availability and use of nutrients by
recycling them through natural processes.
Principles of ecosystem stability :-
 Ecosystem dispose of waste and replenish nutrient by recycling
all elements.
• Ecosystem use sunlight as their sources.
• The size of a consumer population is maintained.
• Biodiversity is maintained
There are two main components to ecosystem stability :-
1. resistance and
2. resilience.
Both resistance and resilience are components of determining
ecosystem stability. Both can also occur at the community,
population, and individual level. An ecosystem can have high
resistance to disturbance, but low resilience, and vice versa. Low
resistance can sometimes be advantageous, such as in ecosystems
that rely on natural disturbances to temporarily change their
conditions in order to remain stable over the long term.
1. Resistance :-
 Resistance is the ability for an ecosystem to remain unchanged
when being subjected to a disturbance or disturbances.
 Or It is defined as by virtue of which a system can resist a
remain steady under stress condition.
 Some ecosystems are better at resisting change than others, and
therefore have high resistance.
 Resistance does not mean that an ecosystem is locked in a
steady stable state. Due to the energy flow through the system
(food, light, water motion), it moves cyclically or stochastically
around stable states (so-called attractors), even without change
in external environmental conditions.
E.g- RedWood forest in California :-
o Redwood National and State Parks - Located in the
northernmost coastal area of California.
o It shows resistance stability due to certain adaptation that
means able to withstand the effect of fire without getting
burnt.
o But in case when fire is of very big magnitude then the
forest will get burnt and it would not able to recover.
o So it has less resilience stability.
2. Resilience :-
 Resilience is the ability and rate of an ecosystem to
recover from a disturbance and return to its pre-disturbed
state. Some ecosystems can shift greatly from their
previous state and still return to pre-disturbance
conditions. The measure for how far an ecosystem can be
shifted from its previous state and still return to normal is
called its amplitude.
 Or By virtue of which one system can quickly recover to
normal position after the stress is over.
E.g-Chaparal forest :-
 Chaparral is a shrubland or plant community found
primarily in the US state of California and in the northern
portion of the Baja california Peninsula, Mexico.
 In chaparral ecosystems have developed resilience stability
as soon as there is fire, vegetation gets burnt completely
but after the fire is over new species comes up and after
some time new individuals of the old species also come up
because they have fire resistant seeds and able to tolerate
very high temperature.
 they have allelopathic character which allow any their own
species to grow.
Factors that affect ecosystem stability :-
 Disturbance frequency and intensity (how often and what kind
of tillage).
 Species diversity (intercropping or rotations), interactions
(competition for water and nutrients from weed species), and
life history strategies (do the species grow fast and produce
many seeds or slow with few seeds)
 Trophic complexity (how many functions are represented),
redundancy (how many populations perform each function),
food web structure (how do all of these groups interact)
 Rate of nutrient or energy flux (how fast are nutrients and
energy moving in and out of the system or input:output
efficiency)

Ecosystem Stability

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What are the two main components of ecosystem stability?

What is resistance in an ecosystem?

Ecosystem stability :-

Ecosystem :- An ecosystem is a functional unit consisting of all the

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