Passing slowly tipping points: opportunities and challenges

In a short conceptual paper that appeared this month in TREE, we play around with the idea that depending on the scale and the rate of change of ecological systems, responses to crossing tipping points may differ widely. Ecosystems without tipping points may appear hysteretic, whereas hysteretic systems may offer a window of opportunity for averting a regime shift even after having passed their tipping point. Such insights may change the way ecosystem managers and policy makers view common practices in a changing world.