The concepts of resistance, recovery, and resilience are in diverse fields from behavioral psychology to planetary ecology. These “three Rs” describe some of the most important properties allowing complex systems to survive in dynamic environments. However, in many fields—including ecology—our ability to predict resistance, recovery and resilience remains limited. Here, we propose new disturbance terminology and describe a unifying definition of resistance, recovery, and resilience. We distinguish functional disturbances that affect short-term ecosystem processes from structural disturbances that alter the state factors of ecosystem development. We define resilience as the combination of resistance and recovery—i.e., the ability of a system to maintain its state by withstanding disturbance or rapidly recovering from it. In the Anthropocene, humans have become dominant drivers of many ecosystem processes and nearly all the state factors influencing ecosystem development. Consequently, the resilience of an individual ecological parameter is not an inherent attribute but a function of linkages with other biological, chemical, physical, and especially social parameters. Because every ecosystem experiences multiple, overlapping disturbances, a multidimensional resilience approach is needed that considers both ecosystem structure (configuration of linkages) and disturbance regime. We explore these concepts with a few case studies and recommend analytical tools and community-based approaches to strengthen ecosystem resilience. Disregarding cultural and social dimensions of disturbance regimes and ecosystem structures leads to undesirable outcomes, particularly in our current context of intensifying socioecological crises. Consequently, cultivating reciprocal relationships with natural disturbance regimes and ecosystem structures is crucial to Earth stewardship in the Anthropocene.

Salt marshes remove terrestrially derived nutrients en route to coasts. While these systems play a critical role in improving water quality, we still have a limited understanding of the spatiotemporal variability of biogeochemically reactive solutes and processes within salt marshes, particularly nitrogen species. To investigate this knowledge gap, we implemented a high-frequency sampling system to monitor sub-hourly nitrate (NO3) concentrations in salt marsh porewater at Elkhorn Slough in central California, USA. We instrumented three marsh positions along an elevation gradient subjected to different extents of tidal inundation, which we hypothesized would lead to varied biogeochemical characteristics and hydrological interactions. At each marsh position, we continuously monitored NO3 concentrations at depths of 10, 30, and 50 cm with subsurface water levels measured from 70 cm wells over seven deployments of ~10 days each. We quantified tidal event hysteresis between NO3 and water level to understand how NO3 concentrations and sources fluctuate across tidal cycles. There was significant differences in the NO3-subsurface water level hysteresis patterns across seasonal wet/dry periods common to Mediterranean climates. In dry periods, the NO3-subsurface water level relationship indicated that the source was likely estuarine surface water that flooded the transect during high tides. In wet periods, the NO3-subsurface water level relationship suggested the salt marsh was a source of NO3. These findings suggest that tidal and seasonal hydrologic fluxes control NO3 porewater dynamics and influence ecological processes in coastal environments.