Ecological systems show tremendous variability across temporal and spatial scales. It is this variability that ecologists try to predict and that managers attempt to harness in order to mitigate risk. However, the foundations of ecological science and its mainstream agenda focus on equilibrium dynamics to describe the balance of nature. Despite a rich body of literature on non-equilibrium ecological dynamics, we lack a well-developed set of predictions that can relate the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of natural systems to their underlying ecological processes. We argue that ecology needs to expand its current toolbox for the study of non-equilibrium ecosystems in order to both understand and manage their spatiotemporal variability. We review current approaches and outstanding questions related to the study of spatial dynamics and its application to natural ecosystems, including the design of reserves networks. We close by emphasizing the importance of ecosystem function as a key component of a non-equilibrium ecological theory, and of spatial synchrony as a central phenomenon for its inference in natural systems.
Keywords: Coastal ecosystems; Ecological dynamics; Non-equilibrium ecosystems; Nonlinear dynamics; Spatial dynamics; Spatiotemporal heterogeneity.
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