Quantifying resilience of humans and other animals

Marten Scheffer; J Elizabeth Bolhuis; Denny Borsboom; Timothy G Buchman; Sanne M W Gijzel; Dave Goulson; Jan E Kammenga; Bas Kemp; Ingrid A van de Leemput; Simon Levin; Carmel Mary Martin; René J F Melis; Egbert H van Nes; L Michael Romero; Marcel G M Olde Rikkert

doi:10.1073/pnas.1810630115

Quantifying resilience of humans and other animals

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Nov 20;115(47):11883-11890. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1810630115. Epub 2018 Oct 29.

Authors

Marten Scheffer¹, J Elizabeth Bolhuis², Denny Borsboom³, Timothy G Buchman⁴, Sanne M W Gijzel^{5

6}, Dave Goulson⁷, Jan E Kammenga⁸, Bas Kemp², Ingrid A van de Leemput⁵, Simon Levin⁹, Carmel Mary Martin¹⁰, René J F Melis⁶, Egbert H van Nes⁵, L Michael Romero¹¹, Marcel G M Olde Rikkert⁶

Affiliations

¹ Environmental Sciences Group, Wageningen University, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands; [email protected].
² Adaptation Physiology Group, Wageningen University, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands.
³ Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, 1018 WX Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
⁴ Emory Critical Care Center, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322.
⁵ Environmental Sciences Group, Wageningen University, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands.
⁶ Department of Geriatrics, Radboud Institute for Health Sciences, Radboud University Medical Center, 6525 GA Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
⁷ School of Life Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton BN1 9RH, United Kingdom.
⁸ Laboratory of Nematology, Wageningen University, 6708 PB Wageningen, The Netherlands.
⁹ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544.
¹⁰ Department of Medicine, Monash Health Community, Clayton, VIC 3168, Australia.
¹¹ Department of Biology, Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155.

Abstract

All life requires the capacity to recover from challenges that are as inevitable as they are unpredictable. Understanding this resilience is essential for managing the health of humans and their livestock. It has long been difficult to quantify resilience directly, forcing practitioners to rely on indirect static indicators of health. However, measurements from wearable electronics and other sources now allow us to analyze the dynamics of physiology and behavior with unsurpassed resolution. The resulting flood of data coincides with the emergence of novel analytical tools for estimating resilience from the pattern of microrecoveries observed in natural time series. Such dynamic indicators of resilience may be used to monitor the risk of systemic failure across systems ranging from organs to entire organisms. These tools invite a fundamental rethinking of our approach to the adaptive management of health and resilience.

Keywords: aging; health; livestock; resilience; tipping points.

Publication types

Editorial

MeSH terms

Adaptation, Physiological / physiology*
Animals
Conservation of Natural Resources / methods
Health / classification*
Holistic Health
Humans
Resilience, Psychological / classification*