Vegetation Resilience in Ecological Autocatalysis under Climate Change

Virgil Alexandru Iordache^1*Samuel Kuria Kiboi^2*

• ¹University of Bucharest, Department of Systems Ecology and Sustainability, and “Dan Manoleli” Research Centre for Ecological Services—CESEC, Bucharest, Romania
• ²University of Nairobi, School of Biological Sciences, Nairobi, Kenya

The concept of chemical autocatalysis was coined by Wilhelm Ostwald in 1980 (Peng 2020). Its standard current definition refers to a chemical reaction in which one of the reaction's products acts as a catalyst. The concept was incorporated into origin-of-life theories in the 1970s and then was adapted by systems ecology to explain the self-organization and growth of ecosystems. There are three main strategies in this interdisciplinary field of research: 1) attempts to reduce the autocatalytic processes in the broad sense to chemical autocatalysis (reductionist strategy, typical for those working on evolution and the origin of life); 2) investigating the formal mathematical structures (e.g., autocatalytic attractors) distilled from all types of autocatalytic processes (structural strategy, typical of theoretical biology and ecology, but is also applicable to the economy); 3) approaching each subfield of life science or economics in terms of its specific networks with positive feedback (autonomist strategy, such as in this research topic). We define ecological autocatalysis as a process by which organisms, populations, or communities self-reinforce through circular interactions with their immediate environment, and ecosystems develop circular interactions in which species promote each other, creating positive feedback loops that sustain the resilience of the productive ecological systems at all scales of complexity.The topic of "Vegetation Resilience in Ecological Autocatalysis under Climate Change" concerns the roles of the autocatalytic processes depicted in Figure 1 in shaping vegetation resilience through plastic deformation and adaptability at the individual, population, and community levels, and the consequences for ecosystem resilience. We use the term resilience to refer to four properties: resistance, elastic deformation, plastic deformation, and adaptability (Iordache and Neagoe, 2023). We use the term "immediate environment" of plant individuals, populations, and communities as "extended phenotypes sensu lato" (Diaz 2025). We identify the roles of autocatalytic processes in vegetation resilience, as shown in Figure 1. These processes have lower complexity than the usual ecosystem autocatalytic behavior conceptualized as species with specific functional traits or fluxes of energy and elements (Veldhuis et al. 2018, Jordan 2022). 2025) also examine the effects of 77 Z (independent variables) on Y (immediate environment). They investigate rainfall interception by 78 sand-fixing vegetation and its impact on soil carbon and nitrogen distribution in sand-covered hilly 79 areas, focusing on different vegetation types and their canopy structures. This kind of research covers 80 the second part of the autocatalytic cycles (the immediate effect functions, Figure 1). 81 82 At the time of writing this editorial, there were 7830 articles with the terms vegetation and resilience 83 in their titles, abstracts, or keywords in Web of Science; 207 also included the term "functional 84 traits"; and only one article with the terms vegetation and autocatalysis. From 2023, the number of 85 articles published by year increased sharply. An analysis of the citation networks among the 7830 86 articles using CiteSpace (Chen 2005-2022) revealed 13 main clusters of literature. Two clusters of 87 literature included the term "vegetation resilience" as a keyword, and one of these also included the 88 term "trait". 89 90 To demonstrate the role of vegetation resilience in ecosystem resilience and its consequences for the 91 production of ecosystem services, stronger cooperation between plant and environmental scientists is 92 needed, combining structural and autonomist strategies to address autocatalytic processes. Such 93 cooperation would be facilitated by a general theoretical background covering all autocatalytic 94 processes relevant to resilience, from organisms to ecosystems, and by specific research infrastructures. 95Systems ecology is well-positioned to be reconceptualized to address this problem (Iordache 2025), 96 and successful long-term ecological research sites can provide institutional models for interdisciplinary 97 research (Iordache and Groffman 2025). Specific information, such as the role of large organisms 98 (Vasseur et al. 2025) and the modular structure of trait spaces (Carmona and Beccari 2025), allows the 99 formulation of specific, tractable research hypotheses. The geographical coverage of continents with 100 less intensive research is also a priority, as climate change manifests everywhere (Bedair et al. 2023). 101Plant scientists and botanists can increase collaboration with ecosystem and 102and earth system scientists to address the complex challenges of vegetation resilience under climate 103 change stress, using plant functional traits. 104