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Rate-induced tipping occurs when a ramp parameter changes rapidly enough to cause the system to tip between co-existing, attracting states. We show that the addition of noise to the system can cause it to tip well below the critical rate at which rate-induced tipping would occur. Moreover, it does so with significantly increased probability over the noise acting alone. We achieve this by finding a global minimizer in a canonical problem of the Freidlin–Wentzell action functional of large deviation theory that represents the most probable path for tipping. This is realized as a heteroclinic connection for the Euler–Lagrange system associated with the Freidlin–Wentzell action and we find it exists for all rates less than or equal to the critical rate. Its role as the most probable path is corroborated by direct Monte Carlo simulations. 

Abstract Savanna ecosystems are shaped by the frequency and intensity of regular fires. We model savannas via an ordinary differential equation (ODE) encoding a one-sided inhibitory Lotka–Volterra interaction between trees and grass. By applying fire as a discrete disturbance, we create an impulsive dynamical system that allows us to identify the impact of variation in fire frequency and intensity. The model exhibits three different bistability regimes: between savanna and grassland; two savanna states; and savanna and woodland. The impulsive model reveals rich bifurcation structures in response to changes in fire intensity and frequency—structures that are largely invisible to analogous ODE models with continuous fire. In addition, by using the amount of grass as an example of a socially valued function of the system state, we examine the resilience of the social value to different disturbance regimes. We find that large transitions (“tipping”) in the valued quantity can be triggered by small changes in disturbance regime. 

There is a growing recognition that ecological systems can spend extended periods of time far away from an asymptotic state, and that ecological understanding will therefore require a deeper appreciation for how long ecological transients arise. Recent work has defined classes of deterministic mechanisms that can lead to long transients. Given the ubiquity of stochasticity in ecological systems, a similar systematic treatment of transients that includes the influence of stochasticity is important. Stochasticity can of course promote the appearance of transient dynamics by preventing systems from settling permanently near their asymptotic state, but stochasticity also interacts with deterministic features to create qualitatively new dynamics. As such, stochasticity may shorten, extend or fundamentally change a system’s transient dynamics. Here, we describe a general framework that is developing for understanding the range of possible outcomes when random processes impact the dynamics of ecological systems over realistic time scales. We emphasize that we can understand the ways in which stochasticity can either extend or reduce the lifetime of transients by studying the interactions between the stochastic and deterministic processes present, and we summarize both the current state of knowledge and avenues for future advances. 

Abstract We develop a general compactification framework to facilitate analysis of nonautonomous ODEs where nonautonomous terms decay asymptotically. The strategy is to compactify the problem: the phase space is augmented with a bounded but open dimension and then extended at one or both ends by gluing in flow-invariant subspaces that carry autonomous dynamics of the limit systems from infinity. We derive the weakest decay conditions possible for the compactified system to be continuously differentiable on the extended phase space. This enables us to use equilibria and other compact invariant sets of the limit systems from infinity to analyze the original nonautonomous problem in the spirit of dynamical systems theory. Specifically, we prove that solutions of interest are contained in unique invariant manifolds of saddles for the limit systems when embedded in the extended phase space. The uniqueness holds in the general case, that is even if the compactification gives rise to a centre direction and the manifolds become centre or centre-stable manifolds. A wide range of problems including pullback attractors, rate-induced critical transitions (R-tipping) and nonlinear wave solutions fit naturally into our framework, and their analysis can be greatly simplified by the compactification.