Data from: Advancing our understanding of ecological stability

The concept of ecological stability occupies a prominent place in both
fundamental and applied ecological research. We review decades of work on
the topic and examine how our understanding has progressed. We show that
our understanding of stability has remained fragmented and is limited
largely to simple or simplified systems. There has been a profusion of
metrics proposed to quantify stability, of which only a handful are used
commonly. Furthermore, studies typically quantify one to two metrics of
stability at a time and in response to a single perturbation, with some of
the main environmental pressures of today being the least studied. We
argue that we need to build on the existing consensus and strong
theoretical foundation of the stability concept to better understand its
multidimensionality and the interdependencies between metrics, levels of
organization and types of perturbations. Only by doing so can we make
progress in the quantification of stability in theory and in practice and
eventually build a more comprehensive understanding of how ecosystems will
respond to ongoing environmental change.