Rock slope failure is commonly regarded as the most significant phase in the evolution of an unstable rock slope. However, many rock slopes do not fail in a single event but rather in several individual ones. Such polyphase rock slope failures impose a challenge, as their post-failure evolution is hard to predict, and the time interval between the failure events, their magnitude, and running-out distance can differ significant...

Synchronous dynamics (fluctuations that occur in unison) are universal phenomena with widespread implications for ecological stability. Synchronous dynamics can amplify the destabilizing effect of environmental variability on ecosystem functions such as productivity, whereas the inverse, compensatory dynamics, can stabilize function. Here we combine simulation and empirical analyses to elucidate mechanisms that underlie patter...

Synchrony is broadly important to population and community dynamics due to its ubiquity and implications for extinction dynamics, system stability, and species diversity. Investigations of synchrony in community ecology have tended to focus on covariance in the abundances of multiple species in a single location. Yet, the importance of regional environmental variation and spatial processes in community dynamics suggests that c...

Compared to the well‐studied open water of the “growing” season, under‐ice conditions in lakes are characterized by low and rather constant temperature, slow water movements, limited light availability, and reduced exchange with the surrounding landscape. These conditions interact with ice‐cover duration to shape microbial processes in temperate lakes and ultimately influence the phenology of community and ecosystem processes....