Understanding Risks and Resilience in Plant Systems
Immagine: Valery Evlakhov, stock.adobe.com With humankind exceeding the planetary boundaries and the safe operating space systemic risks have become frequent: our climate system is approaching a new state, biodiversity losses are endangering ecosystem services,… pests are globally spreading and threatening our food security. Complex systems are characterized by inter-connections between species, agents, individuals and multiple stable states whereas regime shifts can be triggered after periods of stability towards non-linear behavior, i.e. path dependence, sustained oscillation, contagion and synchrony. Systemic risks arise from the potential for unpredictable changes of the system to another state. While we cannot predict when tipping points will arise, we can stabilize the system in the current equilibrium through increasing or restoring resilience and diversity.