Ecologists have long recognized that disturbances can drive ecological system dynamics but several challenges remain for the ecological study of disturbance. First, the general definition above requires detailed specification to translate to particular models and experiments. Deriving theoretical and empirical generality from such complex processes can be aided by flexible conceptual frameworks that detail process elements and their connections. Second, the term disturbance is often associated with negative ecological responses and/or events that increase vulnerability to other global change drivers, particularly in human-dominated ecosystems. Understanding how or why disturbances might instead reduce ecosystem vulnerability is an important area of inquiry as ecosystems are faced with rapid-paced environmental changes. Third, because disturbance is the interaction between an event and a particular ecological system, the effect of a disturbance can be modified as systems and their environments change (i.e., feedbacks). To document and understand event-ecosystem feedbacks requires persistent research to quantify changes in type, intensity, or frequency of drivers of disturbance as well as temporal changes in the sensitivity of systems to disturbance.
Here we review recent developments in the literature examining how long-term ecological research, both within and among research sites, has advanced the understanding of disturbance as a process. Second, we describe a refined theoretical social-ecological framework that explicitly links interactions among social and ecological responses and their feedbacks to disturbance. Third, we apply this framework to seven research sites representing diverse social-ecological ecosystems to provide insights on how disturbance modifies and is influenced by dynamic interactions between social and ecological responses occurring over decadal or longer timescales.
Results/Conclusions
By using the framework to depict and describe disturbance processes we were able to accommodate both antagonistic and synergistic interactions among disturbances, facilitate understanding of how spatial heterogeneity contributes to disturbance response, underscore the importance of feedbacks between social and ecological agents of change, and reveal how consequences of disturbance were likely to change as the environment changes. Application of this framework may allow users to improve expectations of system vulnerability to ongoing environmental changes and better inform management of vulnerability to disturbance. In addition, future application of this framework across ecosystems with even longer data series capturing multiple event-ecosystem state interactions, should profoundly advance our understanding of social-ecological feedbacks to disturbance processes underlying long-term change.