How fast are environmental conditions allowed to change before ecosystems collapse? In our work, we focus on population dynamical systems that are govered by processes evolving on different time scales. We expose those population dynamical systems to fast changing environmental conditions. Therefore, we use time-dependent parameters changing at certain rates.

By increasing the rate the biological system can track or lose contact to the quasi- static stable state. In the latter case, the population dynamics shifts from stable coexistence to extinction. Because such a transition is solely triggered by rates of environmental change it is called rate-induced tipping.

• Is there a critical rate?
• Does the population still collapses if spatial and/or evolutionary dynamics are considered?
• Can rate-induced tipping trigger plankton blooms?

• Nonlinear dynamics and Chaos
• Theoretical ecology
• Physical oceanography