What Do You Mean, 'Tipping Point'?

Egbert H van Nes; Babak M S Arani; Arie Staal; Bregje van der Bolt; Bernardo M Flores; Sebastian Bathiany; Marten Scheffer

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2016.09.011

What Do You Mean, 'Tipping Point'?

Trends Ecol Evol. 2016 Dec;31(12):902-904. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2016.09.011. Epub 2016 Oct 25.

Authors

Egbert H van Nes¹, Babak M S Arani², Arie Staal², Bregje van der Bolt², Bernardo M Flores², Sebastian Bathiany², Marten Scheffer²

Affiliations

¹ Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management Group, Environmental Science Department, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands. Electronic address: egbert.vannes@wur.nl.
² Aquatic Ecology and Water Quality Management Group, Environmental Science Department, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands.

PMID: 27793466
DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2016.09.011

Abstract

Over the past 10 years the use of the term 'tipping point' in the scientific literature has exploded. It was originally used loosely as a metaphor for the phenomenon that, beyond a certain threshold, runaway change propels a system to a new state. Although several specific mathematical definitions have since been proposed, we argue that these are too narrow and that it is better to retain the original definition.

Keywords: alternative stable states; basin of attraction; critical slowing down; critical transitions; resilience.

MeSH terms

Ecology
Humans
Terminology as Topic*