Abstract: With the exacerbating disturbances of climate changes and human activities to terrestrial ecosystems, more and more studies realize that ecosystems are at the risk of shifts without warning in structural and functional states and recovery from perturbations require more time. Developing an early warning model to identify critical transition and understanding its ecological mechanism of typical ecosystems have become hotspot in ecological researches. At present, based on theoretical and experimental researches across multiple spatiotemporal scales, a variety of theoretical frameworks and indicators of early warning signals (EWSs) were proposed to signal terrestrial ecosystem critical transition. Here, in order to more thoroughly understand and construct theoretical frameworks and indicators of early warning signals, we reviewed advances in critical transitions from aspects of theoretical methods and processing mechanisms. Catastrophe theory and critical slowing down (CSD) are the two basic theories for early-warning ecosystem state transitions. Self-organization and feedback mechanisms are the primary ecological mechanisms to shape alternative stable state. Understanding cascade effects networks (CENet) among biological and environmental elements, and clarifying the equilibrium relationships between input and output of key ecosystem parameters are theoretical foundation of critical transition model. These theoretical cognitions could provide useful references to early warning of ecosystem disasters, ecological environment management and restoration.

Key words: terrestrial ecosystem, catastrophe theory, critical transition, alternative stable state, self-organization, feedback mechanism