Question

Imagine that during a drought a community shows only a modest reduction in NPP (say, 10%), but never recovers its pre-drought productivity. An ecologist would describe the community as having:

Answer 1

High resistance, but low resilience

Step-by-step explanation:

The stability of a community is expressed in terms of resistance and resilience. Resistance refers to the tolerance of a community against any disturbance. It represents the ability of the community to remain stable and maintain equilibrium in the presence of disturbance before it changes. Resilience is the ability of a community to restore the equilibrium after any natural or artificial disturbance.

According to the given information, the community shows only a 10% reduction in its NPP during drought. This shows that the community is highly resistant to drought. However, it does not restore the pre-drought productivity after the drought. This means that the community has low resilience.