Regime shifts have been documented in a variety of natural and social systems. These abrupt transitions produce dramatic shifts in the composition and functioning of socioecological systems. Existing theory on ecosystem resilience has only considered regime shifts to be caused by changes in external conditions beyond a tipping point and therefore lacks an evolutionary perspective. In this study, we show how a change in external conditions has little ecological effect and does not push the system beyond a tipping point. The change therefore does not cause an immediate regime shift but instead triggers an evolutionary process that drives a phenotypic trait beyond a tipping point, thereby resulting (after a substantial delay) in a selection-induced regime shift. Our finding draws attention to the fact that regime shifts observed in the present may result from changes in the distant past, and highlights the need for integrating evolutionary dynamics into the theoretical foundation for ecosystem resilience.

各种自然和社会系统都记录了政权更迭。这些突然的转变在社会生态系统的组成和功能上产生了巨大的变化。现有的生态系统恢复力理论只考虑了由外部条件变化引起的超过临界点的制度转变，因此缺乏进化视角。在这项研究中，我们展示了外部条件的变化如何对生态影响很小，并且不会使系统超出临界点。因此，这种变化不会导致立即的政权转变，而是触发一个进化过程，使表型性状超过临界点，从而导致（在相当长的延迟之后）选择诱导的政权转变。