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IMAGE: New research can help ecosystem managers identify species vulnerabilities and prevent populations from becoming at risk, like the endangered Mexican gray wolf. view more
Credit: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
More than 3,000 animal species in the world today are considered endangered, with hundreds more categorized as vulnerable. Currently, ecologists don t have reliable tools to predict when a species may become at risk.
A new paper published in
Nature Ecology and Evolution, Management implications of long transients in ecological systems, focuses on the transient nature of species and ecosystem stability and illustrates how management practices can be adjusted to better prepare for possible system flips. Some helpful modeling approaches are also offered, including one tool that may help identify potentially endangered populations.