Abstract: The earth has been experiencing ever-increasing climatic fluctuation and extreme events for decades, and ecosystem structure and function have generally slipped into recession, resulting in significant impacts on economy and ecology. Ecosystem stability refers the ability of ecosystem to maintain or restore to normal structure and function, which is the key to maintain the ecosystem service function. However, due to the complexity of the ecosystem, the results of the research on the stability are still controversial. Here, the dimensionality, spatial patterns and influencing mechanisms of ecosystem stability were summarized from 58 relevant literatures. The multi-dimensional framework of ecosystem stability, definition and interrelationship of various stability indicators were discussed respectively as well as the effects of latitude, altitude, and position on stability. The dominant factors of the variation of stability at different scales and the effects of abiotic factors such as climate, nutrition and biological factors such as biodiversity on stability were also discussed. The results indicated that correlations between different components of ecosystem stability leaded to their generalization into three dimensionalities, including resistance, resilience and temporal stability. In addition, ecosystem stability was regulated by abiotic factors such as climate and nutrition as well as biological factors such as species richness and population variability. Stability and its influencing mechanisms showed strong spatial heterogeneity and scale dependence, which were mainly controlled by biological factors such as biodiversity at the site scale, and abiotic factors such as temperature, precipitation and radiation at the regional and global scales. Data source noise and unstandardized quantification methods were the main problems in stability study. In the future, with the applications of satellite remote sensing and other acquisition methods, the research field will be gradually expanding from local scale such as site to global scale such as region and continent, and a standardized stability assessment method can be formed. The large spatial scale research can effectively elucidate the general relationship between ecosystem stability and its response to various driving forces, providing a theoretical basis for the formulation of sustainable ecological protection policies.

Key words: Ecosystem stability, Resistance, Resilience, Temporal stability, Biodiversity