Ecosystems with many and similar species can handle tougher environmental disturbances

How sensitive an ecosystem is to unforeseen environmental stress can be determined, according to Daniel Bruno, previous visiting researcher at Umeå University. The approach is to study how many species there are in an ecosystem and what proportion of these can replace species that are hard hit by environmental disturbances. Thanks to this new knowledge, we can predict how various ecosystems react to environmental disturbances, which is necessary to maintain these systems in a sustainable w