&roles:Volker Grimm · Christian Wissel
Babel, or the ecological stability discussions: an inventory and analysis
of terminology and a guide for avoiding confusion
&misc:Received: 4 June 1996 / Accepted: 5 November 1996
&p.1:Abstract We present an inventory and analysis of dis-
cussions of ecological stability, considering 163 defini-
tions of 70 different stability concepts. Our aim is to de-
rive a strategy that can help to dispel the existing “confu-
sion of tongues” on the subject of “stability” and prevent
its future recurrence. The strategy consists of three ques-
tions that should be kept in mind when communicating
about stability properties. These three questions should
overcome the three main sources of confusion in termi-
nology. Firstly, which stability properties are being ad-
dressed in the stability statement? Our analysis shows
that the general term “stability” is so ambiguous as to be
useless. It can be replaced by the stability properties
“staying essentially unchanged” (constancy), “returning
to the reference state (or dynamic) after a temporary dis-
turbance” (resilience), and “persistence through time of
an ecological system” (persistence). Second, to what
ecological situation does the statement refer? An ecolog-
ical situation is defined by a set of features that, taken as
a whole, determine the domain of validity of a stability
statement. The six most important features form the
“ecological checklist”, which serves to classify ecologi-
cal situations and thereby provides a system of coordi-
nates for communication. The six points are: variable of
interest, level of description, reference state, disturbance,
spatial scale and temporal scale. Thirdly, is the statement
anchored in the situation in question, or is there unac-
ceptable generalisation by inferring “stability” of the
whole system from a certain stability property in a cer-
tain ecological ecological situation? This question sepa-
rates the scientifically valuable content of a statement
from the desire for general statements which is often
projected through stability statements.
&kwd:Key words Terminology · (Ecological) stability ·
Resilience · Persistence · Generality&bdy:
V. Grimm (✉) · C. Wissel
UFZ Centre for Environmental Research Leipzig-Halle,
Department of Ecological Modelling, P.O. Box 2,
D-04301 Leipzig, Germany&/fn-block:
Introduction
Human concepts are signposts through the confusing
complexity of nature. We need them to narrow down the
never-ending tally of possible questions that we empiri-
cally or theoretically ask of nature. Without concepts it is
impossible to work scientifically. The price for this,
however, is that the concepts determine the ways and
methods in which we perceive nature. Critical examina-
tion of the concepts of their field is therefore part and
parcel of every scientist’s obligations. This is particularly
the case in ecology: nearly all ecological concepts are
hotly contested (e.g. the concepts “competition” and
“density dependence”), but the contested point is the role
that these concepts actually play in nature – the concepts
themselves are relatively clear and simple to define.
How, though, should one critically evaluate a concept
if there are many overlapping or even contradictory defi-
nitions of it? This is the situation that confronts us when
dealing with the concept of “stability”. “Stability” is, as
we will see, one of the most nebulous terms in the whole
of ecology. The aim of this paper is to enable the proper
critical evaluation of the term “stability”. We do not in-
tend to introduce “our” version of the stability definition,
and thereby only add to the problem, but rather we will
proceed from the most quoted works on the subject of
stability (Lewontin 1969; Holling 1973; Botkin and So-
bel 1975; Orians 1975; Westman 1978; Connell and Sou-
sa 1983; Pimm 1984), which are all incisive reflections
and illustrate the diversity of stability concepts. The
point of departure of this paper is therefore an inventory
of the stability discussion in the ecological literature.
The central thesis of this paper is that the fundamental
cause of the terminological confusion stems from the fol-
lowing conflict. Stability concepts derived from mathe-
matics and physics are only suited to characterising the
dynamic behaviour of simple dynamic systems, but eco-
logical systems are not simple dynamic systems (Grimm
et al. 1992). By “simple dynamic system”, we mean a
system in which, for instance, state variable, reference
states, and possible disturbances are, because of the sim-
 plicity of the system, unambiguously defined. There are
few degrees of freedom in the description of simple dy-
namic systems. Classical examples are the pendulum and
the rolling ball. Ecological systems are not simple dy-
namic systems because many degrees of freedom are al-
ways available for their description. A forest, for exam-
ple, may be described using many different variables
such as biomass, diversity, density of certain dominant
species, nutrient pools, nutrient cycling rates, buffer ca-
pacity of soil, spatial patterns, and many more. Distur-
bances may affect any of these variables in a different
way. Reactions to disturbances may depend on strength,
frequency, spatial and temporal pattern, regularity and
many other aspects of the disturbances.
The use of stability concepts makes the projection of
ecological systems on to a simple dynamic system inevi-
table, in that one is forced to decide on a particular state
variable, reference state, a particular type of disturbance
and so on. But because even the simplest ecological sys-
tems have at least a few different possible descriptions,
the use of stability concepts, without additional instru-
ments, is bound to lead to the current state of confusion.
We introduce an “ecological checklist” as an additional
instrument, which serves to structure and classify state-
ments about stability properties of ecological systems. In
the light of the ecological checklist it becomes clear that
stability concepts are no miracle cure for all the real and
imaginary “diseases” of ecology, but intellectual and
practical tools which help to improve the description, un-
derstanding and protection of ecological systems
(Grimm 1996).
Terms and definitions: an inventory
How many definitions of stability concepts and measures
are there in the literature? The answer to this question
depends on what we understand by the term “stability
concepts”. Initially therefore, we want to make do with
the usual blurred definitions; that stability concepts are
concepts that have something to do with stability – what-
ever we mean by stability. A more exact definition will
be given in the next paragraph. Our collection of stability
concepts has, in the meantime, grown to 163 definitions
from 70 different stability concepts and more than 40
measures (cf. Grimm et al. 1992). Appendix 1 contains
the literature references for all the stability definitions
evaluated in this article.
Table 1 shows that ecologists usually have three ways
of defining a stability concept: Either they use a known
term and redefine it (e.g. resilience – left column in Ta-
ble 1), or they invent a new term (e.g. attractor block –
middle column in Table 1), or they extend the term “sta-
bility” by one adjective (e.g. biomass stability – right
column in Table 1). As there is no unified terminology in
ecology the authors do the only thing possible to the
terms from Table 1: they explicitly name and define
those properties of ecological systems they want to ex-
amine. But do we need so many terms and definitions?
How can one maintain a perspective with this kind of
conceptual diversity? The key question that, alone, can
establish clarity is: how many different properties of eco-
logical systems occur in all of the many definitions? If
there really were more than 50 different “stability prop-

Table 1 A list of stability

terms to be found in the litera- Stability (25) Attractor block Adjustment [stability]
ture. Adjectives (e.g. stable, Persistence (15) Amplitude (4) Anthropogenic stability
persistent) are changed into Constancy (5) Cyclicity Biomass stability
substantives. The numbers in Domain of attraction (2) Damping c-Stability*
parentheses denote the number Ecological stability (6) Dynamic boundedness Connective stability
of definitions to be found for Elasticity (8) Dynamic fragility (2) Cyclical stability
each expression. Terms marked Resilience (17) Dynamic robustness (3) D-stability
with an asterisk (*) are defined Resistance (9) Ecological lability Essential stability
in the original German. The Ecosystem health Functional stability
terms are classified as: (1) Con- Existence Global stability
ventional terms (first column); Hysteresis (2) k-Stability*
(2) newly invented terms (sec- Inertia (4) Lagrange stability
ond column); (3) “Stability”, Malleability (2) Local stability
plus an adjective (third column) Maturity Mathematical stability
&/tbl.c: Mutual invasibility Multi-stability*
Permanence Natural stability
Persistence at fixed densities Neutral stability
Persistence in the wide sense o-Stability*
Recurrence Perceived stability
Regulation Practical stability
Repellor Qualitative stability
Resiliency (2) Relative stability
Responsiveness r-Stability*
Semi-stable attractor Resistance stability (2)
Sensitivity (2) Species deletion stability
Stable attractor Structural stability (2)
Strictly persistent t-Stability*
Strongly persistent Temporal stability
Vulnerability (2) Terminal stability
Weakly persistent Total stability
Trajectory stability
Ultra-stability*

&/tbl.: