Evidence map›Paper›PMID 41582563›Full record

ArticleEcology2026

A fundamental trade-off among resilience, resistance, efficiency, and redundancy in tidal wetlands.

Joshua E Lerner, Rusty A Feagin, Thomas P Huff, Raymond G Najjar, Astrid Layton, Maria Herrmann, Jose D Fuentes

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Ecology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
1citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

1 citing paper in PubMed.

  1. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

7 authors.

Joshua E LernerDepartment of Ecology and Conservation Biology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5055-1247
Rusty A FeaginDepartment of Ecology and Conservation Biology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA.ORCID https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4651-0933
Thomas P HuffDepartment of Ecology and Conservation Biology, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA.
Raymond G NajjarDepartment of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA.
Astrid LaytonJ. Mike Walker '66 Department of Mechanical Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, USA.
Maria HerrmannDepartment of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA.
Jose D FuentesDepartment of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA.

Funding

NASA OBB 80NSSC21K0685National Science Foundation CNS 2115275
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

In an era of change, the survival and adaptability of ecosystems will be tested. An optimal ecosystem would be both resistant and resilient to negative disturbance but also efficient and redundant in its growth when given positive subsidies. However, initial evidence has suggested that these properties cannot all be maximized at the same time, and so we sought to quantitatively assess whether there are fundamental trade-offs between them at the ecosystem level. To achieve this aim, we used a 250-m resolution NASA MODIS dataset of gross primary productivity (GPP) to monitor 145,871 tidal wetland locations across the conterminous United States every 16 days from March 2000 to December 2020. We quantified the size and duration of the perturbation events in tidal wetland GPP (n = 13,754,386) and modeled their frequency distributions. Event sizes and recurrence intervals were exponentially distributed and event durations were closely modeled by an inverse power law. This scale-free manner through which tidal wetlands dissipated perturbations to their GPP flux provided them with long-term stability across a wide range of geography. We also found that a tidal wetland's positive event responses traded off between properties of efficiency and redundancy, its negative events traded off between resistance and resilience, and that all four properties were orthogonally related to one another. We then constructed a conceptual model to help understand the potential mechanism behind this four-quadrant trade-off. The trade-off appeared to be driven by a feedback between the waiting time and magnitude of positive and negative events, the duration of their effects, and the environmental and physical constraints limiting an ecosystem's growth and productivity. In summary, we detail an emergent pattern of trade-offs and constraints associated with how tidal wetland ecosystems respond to both positive and negative perturbations in carbon flux.

Indexed as

WetlandsModels, BiologicalSeashoreTime Factorsdisturbanceecosystemsefficiencygross primary productivityperturbationredundancyremote sensingresilienceresistancetidal wetlands

Identifiers

PMID41582563
PMCPMC12833588

What OpenQuestion holds

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LicenceCC BY-NC
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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.