The risk of threshold responses, tipping points, and cascading failures in pollination systems

Growing evidence of global declines in pollinator abundance and diversity has raised concerns about the resilience of pollination systems. When subjected to stressors, each nested component of the pollination system (communities, populations, and colonies) can respond in either a smooth linear fashion, or in an abrupt nonlinear manner. Threshold and tipping point responses to stress are of particular concern because they result in sudden changes...