Managing ecosystems under climate change using nature’s hidden design

by Helen Vanos, University of Guelph, Centre for Ecosystem Management
July 29, 2026

Researchers at the Centre for Ecosystem Management (CEM), together with scientists from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, Cornell University, Great Lakes Fishery Commission and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, have published a paper showing that ecosystems become more resilient to environmental change through “”portfolio effects”” operating across multiple levels of ecological organization.

These portfolio effects arise because ecosystems contain natural variation at multiple nested scales, from habitats and populations to species and entire energy pathways. Just as a diversified investment portfolio spreads risk across different assets, ecosystems become more resilient when different ecological components can respond differently or even compensatorily when disrupted.

The study, published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, argues that portfolio effects operating at different ecological scales work together to maintain ecosystem resilience.

Keep reading: https://phys.org/news/2026-07-ecosystems-climate-nature-hidden.html

Read the Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment paper: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/fee.70057