Editorial

Abstract

Many natural resources around the world are being overexploited (FAO Fisheries Department, 2022; IPBES, 2019), sometimes to the extent that ecosystems are on the brink of collapse. This is especially true for marine systems where overfishing is a continuous and globally increasing ecological and economic issue, also resulting in impacts on society and culture. Marine ecosystems are threatened to cross tipping points, leading to abrupt changes in recruitment, biomass, and consequently in catches (Möllmann et al., 2021). In the past years, tipping point analysis has spread to various interdisciplinary fields such as natural resource modeling. A historic example is found in the shallow lakes theory where several stable states have been shown to exist and to reverse tipping from a healthy ecosystem to a eutrophicated state may require more than just nutrient removal (Scheffer, 1997). The optimal management of these systems requires interdisciplinary approaches that account for the vulnerability of ecosystems to tipping but also to consider multiple economic costs and benefits (Voss & Quaas, 2021). In an integrated perspective of natural resource systems that takes the feedbacks between ecological and socioeconomic processes into account, tipping points in the system are not necessarily a bad thing. These systems may be on an unsustainable path, and achieving sustainability may require to shift the system toward another domain of attraction (Derissen & Quaas, 2013). The aim of the 2021 World Conference on Natural Resource Modeling was to discuss how to change ecological‐economic system dynamics toward long‐term sustainability. As worldwide pandemic restrictions were in place it was the first fully virtual conference of the Resource Modeling Association. Owing to low costs and sessions convenient to all time zones the conference became a particularly inclusive event, with a wide range of papers and topics from all over the world. The collection of papers in this special issue represents a selection of contributions toward the fields of tipping point analysis and the management of coupled ecological socioeconomic systems. In “To tip or not to tip: The Window of Tipping Point Analysis for social‐ecological systems” Riekhof et al. (2022) introduce a new framework to increase the understanding of processes and tipping points in social‐ecological systems and discuss the desirability of alternative stable states. In “A stylized model of stochastic ecosystems with alternative stable states” Stecher and Baumgärtner (2022) advance the field of multistability by introducing stochasticity in the ecosystem state and identifying a multitude of important applications. Finally, in “Joint management of marine mammals and a fish species: The case of cod and grey seals in the Nordic‐Baltic Sea countries” Blomquist et al. (2022) point out the importance of taking multiple costs and benefits of predators and harvested prey in a managed marine ecosystem into account. We would like to thank the authors and reviewers as well as the editor in chief Shandelle Henson for their contributions and support.