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Reply to: Empirical pressure-response relations can benefit assessment of safe operating spaces

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 5, pages 1080–1081 (2021)Cite this article

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The Original Article was published on 03 June 2021

REPLYING TO S. J. Lade et al. Nature Ecology & Evolution https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01481-5 (2021)

We welcome the discussion started by Lade et al.1 on the important common goal of devising effective ways of managing global change impacts on ecosystems. We also agree with their call for a more diverse toolkit and continued development of environmental management options. However, we disagree on the ubiquity of thresholds in ecosystems and are sceptical on how they may be used as a framework in ecology and environmental sciences. Therefore, we are grateful for the opportunity to reply to each of their four main statements.

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References

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Author information

Author notes

  1. Julian Merder

    Present address: Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution for Science, Stanford, CA, USA

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Plankton Ecology Laboratory, Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment, Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Wilhelmshaven, Germany

    Helmut Hillebrand

  2. Helmholtz Institute for Functional Marine Biodiversity at the University of Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany

    Helmut Hillebrand & Dorothee Hodapp

  3. Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, Bremerhaven, Germany

    Helmut Hillebrand & Dorothee Hodapp

  4. Department of Zoology, School of Natural Sciences, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland

    Ian Donohue

  5. Department of Physiological Diversity, Helmholtz Center for Environmental Research, Leipzig, Germany

    W. Stanley Harpole

  6. German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research, Leipzig, Germany

    W. Stanley Harpole

  7. Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Halle, Germany

    W. Stanley Harpole

  8. MARUM-Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen, Bremen, Germany

    Michal Kucera

  9. Tvärminne Zoological Station, University of Helsinki, Hanko, Finland

    Aleksandra M. Lewandowska

  10. Marine Geochemistry, Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment, Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany

    Julian Merder

  11. Centre for Biodiversity Theory and Modelling, Theoretical and Empirical Ecology Station, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Moulis, France

    Jose M. Montoya

  12. Theoretical Physics/Complex Systems, Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment, Carl von Ossietzky University Oldenburg, Oldenburg, Germany

    Jan A. Freund

Authors
  1. Helmut Hillebrand
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  2. Ian Donohue
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  3. W. Stanley Harpole
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  4. Dorothee Hodapp
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  5. Michal Kucera
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  6. Aleksandra M. Lewandowska
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  7. Julian Merder
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  8. Jose M. Montoya
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  9. Jan A. Freund
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Contributions

H.H. drafted a first version of the reply to Lade et al., all co-authors contributed to the text.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Helmut Hillebrand.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Ecology & Evolution thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Hillebrand, H., Donohue, I., Harpole, W.S. et al. Reply to: Empirical pressure-response relations can benefit assessment of safe operating spaces. Nat Ecol Evol 5, 1080–1081 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-021-01484-2

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