Can nature's leading indicators presage environmental disaster?

Economists use leading indicators - the drivers of economic performance - to take the temperature of the economy and predict the future. Now, in a new study, scientists take a page from the social science handbook and use leading indicators of the environment to presage the potential collapse of ecosystems. The study, published 5 January in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by two ecologists and an economist, suggests it may be possible to use nature's leading indicators to avert environmental disaster...

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