As global ecosystems increasingly approach critical thresholds, the ability to forecast abrupt regime shifts has become a central challenge in modern science. This symposium explores the synergy of (1) mechanistic theory, (2) advanced computational modeling, and (3) large-scale data analysis, to decode the dynamics of tipping points and multiple stable states in ecological systems. By integrating diverse ideas and approaches, the symposium aims to advance our fundamental understanding of nonlinear transitions at the population, community, and ecosystem levels on ecological and evolutionary timescales.
Nakashima Hall, Food Science Bldg., Hongo Campus, The University of Tokyo
Access map (Food Science Bldg. is #119 on the map)
May 30 (Sat), 2026
10:00 - 17:00
Pre-registration is NOT required
10:00-10:20 Gaku Takimoto (Univ. of Tokyo): On the use of computational intelligence to forecast ecosystem transitions
10:20-10:40 Takehiro Sasaki (Yokohama National Univ.): Antecedent environmental drivers of persistent transitions in estuarine macroinvertebrates
10:40-11:00 Katie Dixon (Univ. of Chicago): Using spatiotemporal data and statistical learning to explore critical thresholds
11:00-11:20 Shota Nishijima (FRA): Synergistic effects of fishing and climate change trigger sudden and irreversible fish population collapse
11:20-11:40 Aki Yanagawa (Meisei Univ.): Predicting ecosystem resistance from simple environmental variables
11:40-12:00 Samuel Ross (OIST): Assessing changes in species behaviour and ecosystem dynamics under disturbance from ecoacoustic time series
13:10-13:30 Kenta Suzuki (RIKEN): Energy landscape analysis of the Mongolian steppe ecosystem
13:30-13:50 Karen Abbott (Case Western Reserve Univ.): The time scale of ecological responses: long transients and rate-dependent tipping
14:00-15:00 Flash talks (5 minutes each with short time for questions between speakers)
Vignal Toyo Valentina (OIST): The effect of consumer-resource coupling on the resilience of a bistable system: a theoretical model
Keiichi Morita (Hokkaido Univ.): Eco-evolutionary regime shift through co-evolution of reproductive traits in competitive plant communities
Masaaki Sakagami (Kyoto Univ.): Regime shifts in early vocabulary development: a latent space approach with variational autoencoders
Genta Shima (Kyoto Univ.): Predicting microbiome dynamics via energy landscape analysis
Takahiro Irie (Kyushu Univ.): Warming-induced size reduction in marine ectotherms
Widya Liana Aji (OIST): Investigating the temperature-dependence of regime shifts and hysteresis in an aquatic ecosystem
Takamitsu Ohigashi (Tohoku Univ.): Linking state-dependent temperature responses of fish with range shifts via nonlinear time-series analysis
Hiroaki Fujita (Kyoto Univ.): Community shift accompanied by instability in driver species
15:00 - 17:00 Please join us for a mixer with refreshments outside the lecture hall