Alternative stable states: Contrasting states to which a system may converge under the same external conditions (www.sparcs-center.org).
Attractor: A state or dynamic regime to which a model converges given sufficient simulation time (www.sparcs-center.org).
Critical transition: A sudden shift in the dynamical behaviour of a system when changing abundances or conditions pass a critical value (www.sparcs-center.org).
Ecological resilience: The magnitude of disturbance that a system can tolerate before it shifts into a different state. A more liberal definition used for social-ecological systems is: The capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganise while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks (www.sparcs-center.org).
Equilibrium: Situation in which processes that affect the state of a system precisely balance out so that it does not change. An equilibrium is stable if the system returns to it upon a small perturbation, and unstable if the system moves away from the equilibrium point upon such a perturbation (www.sparcs-center.org).
Feedback loop: Set of cause-effect relationships that form a closed loop (www.sparcs-center.org).
Hysteresis:
Nonlinear system: A system in which the dynamics are not linearly dependent on the state. This can lead to phenomena such as thresholds, multiple attractors, cycles and chaotic dynamics (www.sparcs-center.org).
Positive feedback: A chain of effects through which something has a positive effect on itself. For instance, …
Regime shift: A relatively sharp change from one regime to a contrasting one, where a regime is a ‘dynamic state’ of a system with its characteristic stochastic fluctuations and/or cycles (www.sparcs-center.org).
Repellor: The opposite of an attractor. A state or dynamic regime from which a model moves away (www.sparcs-center.org).
Nonlinear system: A system in which the dynamics are not linearly dependent on the state. This can lead to phenomena such as thresholds, multiple attractors, cycles and chaotic dynamics (www.sparcs-center.org).
Stable equilibrium: Attractor point (www.sparcs-center.org).
Strange attractor: Attractor on which the system shows chaotic behaviour (www.sparcs-center.org).
Tipping point:
Unstable equilibrium: Repellor point (www.sparcs-center.org).