PNNL

Abstract

Disturbances fundamentally alter ecosystem structure and function; yet predicting the impacts of disturbances across ecological scales and contexts remains a key scientific challenge. The study of ecological disturbances is expansive with varying terminology and methodologies applied across disciplines such as paleoecology, forestry, ecohydrology, and environmental microbiology. The lack of an agreed upon foundation for discussing and quantifying the complexity of disturbances has impaired scientific research and its ability to predict disturbances and their consequences. This shortcoming presents an increasingly urgent and difficult challenge due to accelerating global environmental change and the threat of interacting disturbances that can further destabilize ecosystem responses. By harvesting the ‘swarm intelligence’ of an interdisciplinary cohort of contributors spanning 42 institutions across 15 countries, we propose a pathway towards a new conceptual model of ecological disturbances that integrates disturbance ecology from diverse scientific disciplines. We develop a generalized framework of ecosystem disturbances to enable examination of the drivers of and interactions between disturbances and their impacts that is applicable regardless of the lines of inquiry or spatiotemporal scales of investigation. Our proposed framework puts forth a well-defined lexicon for drivers, impacts, and definitions of disturbance, thereby increasing the interoperability of disturbance research across scientific domains. We also recommend unified scientific approaches, such as standardized indices and minimum reporting standards that detail the magnitude, duration, and rate of change of driver and response variables, regardless of scale. Finally, we propose four concrete future directions to advance our interdisciplinary understanding of disturbances and their social-ecological impacts. Our experience through this process motivates us to encourage the wider scientific community to continue to explore the suitability of new approaches for developing multidisciplinary lines of research and to leverage Open Science principles in generating creative and emergent ideas.