Regime shift

Definition of Regime shift: Ecological regime shifts are large, sudden changes in ecosystems that entail changes in the internal dynamics and feedbacks of an ecosystem and last of substantial periods of time. They often prevent it from returning to a previous regime, even when the driver that precipitated the shift is reduced or removed. Regime shifts typically result from a combination of gradual changes in an underlying driving variable (or set of variables), combined with a sudden external perturbation (Biggs etal., 2009). This is the common definition for Regime shift, other definitions can be discussed in the article