Threat processes

Context

It is useful to consider the RLE criteria used to evaluate the risk of ecosystem collapse in the context of threatening processes that represent the Risk of loss of characteristic native biota.

Threatening processes are generally aligned to processes that affect ecosystem distribution and ecosystem process. In turn, threatening processes relate to individual evaluation criteria through various mechanisms and symptoms of ecosystem collapse:

For example:

• Criterion A reflects the causal mechanisms of Declining distribution, such as the habitat loss, reduced carrying capacity (habitat quantity) and reduced niche diversity. .
• Criterion B assesses the susceptibility of ecosystems with restricted geographic distributions to spatially explicit threats and catastrophes that could impact the entire ecosystem
• Criterion C evaluates environmental degradation, focusing on the degradation of the abiotic environment
• Criterion D examines the disruption of key biotic processes and interactions, such as changes in species composition, loss of keystone species, altered trophic structures, and interference with mutualistic relationships can reflect. Reduced vital rates and species associations, such as mutualisms, and increased interference
• Criterion E involves a quantitative risk analysis, which can combine threat processes that influence spatially explicit threats, vital rates, biological interactions and reduced carrying capacity of ecosystems.

The assessment of these criteria and threat processes can be further defined as sub-criteria which we will explore in the next section.