Accelerating loss of resilience in Bornean rainforests

Tropical rainforest resilience is being eroded by climate change and human activity, potentially risking tipping points of mass forest dieback towards Savannah-like or treeless states. Recent work on the Amazon used decades of satellite-derived vegetation data to reveal increases in generic early-warning signals of a bifurcation-induced tipping point, which were most pronounced in areas with less rainfall and closer to human activity. Here, we extend this approach to Borneo and include novel considerations to assess if, when and how rapidly resilience loss has accelerated, and whether that acceleration has any relationship with biodiversity. We detected a direct signal of resilience loss through the critical slowing down of Bornean rainforest’s response to perturbations, which was observed through rising lag-1 autocorrelation and variance of long-term satellite-sensed vegetation data. We find Bornean rainforest lost resilience over our full study period (from 1991-2016), with a marked increase in the rate of loss from 2006. Resilience loss was most severe and accelerated earlier in subregions with lower precipitation, lower biodiversity, higher temperature and higher human activity, although this pattern was disrupted post-2006 since when resilience loss has been faster in areas with higher precipitation and lower human activity. Overall, we provide evidence of Bornean rainforest resilience loss, underscoring the urgent need for ecosystem conservation and climate change mitigation within Borneo and worldwide.