A long-standing problem in ecology is how we can quantify the environmental perturbation that a population or a community can tolerate before switching to an undesirable state. This workshop aims to study this essential question from the critical transition and the coexistence theory perspective.

1) Critical transitions arise when systems undergo an abrupt transition in their state. Often, the recovery of the system to its previous state cannot be achieved without intense efforts. A classical example of such a transition is the eutrophication of shallow lakes. Despite the complexity of the underlying dynamics, such regime shifts are preceded by generic early warning signals.

2) Coexistence theory aims to study the conditions for species to coexist at a given place and time. However, the majority of empirical and theoretical understanding comes from two-species systems. The reason is one of practicality: experiments and theory devoted to understanding the interaction of two species are simpler and more tractable. Nonetheless, the focus on pairwise coexistence misses important processes that only emerge in diverse systems of competitors. The maintenance of coexistence in species-rich ecosystems clearly requires a theory that goes beyond the pairwise framework. A multispecies coexistence theory will be introduced and applied to the study of coexistence under changing environment.