Climate change represents a substantial challenge for land managers and policy makers. Increasing variability in weather and changing disturbance regimes are important consequences of climate change, and this increased variability will have a large impact on ecosystem structure and function. Consequently, land managers are seeking strategies to create ecosystems that are capable of adapting to sustain ecosystem services under changing, and increasingly variable, environmental conditions. One approach to assessing this adaptive capacity is to use historical data, such as dendrochronological records or long-term population records, to examine the stability in ecosystem services in response to past fluctuations. In this session, we will explore the historic impact of ecosystem complexity on the stability of ecosystem services in several ecosystem types.