•Dynamic model predicts ecosystem tipping points under exploitation, revealing surprising biodiversity impacts and guiding conservation efforts.

生态系统正因人类过度捕捞和森林砍伐等不可持续活动而经历前所未有的持续性恶化，这种破坏对生态系统稳定性的影响仍未明确。尽管在系统相变和临界点的实验与理论研究方面取得了进展，但在分析和理解衰亡链（即由过度开发引发的物种灭绝序列）方面仍缺乏有效的理论工具，特别是在大规模非线性网络系统中。本研究开发了一种数学工具，用于预测多种开发情境下生态系统的相变和衰亡链，并在26个不同规模和密度的真实互利网络中进行了验证。研究发现，生态系统在开发过程中经历了五个阶段：安全、部分灭绝、双稳态、三稳态和崩溃，由此可以为退化或崩溃的系统设计最优恢复策略。此外，我们使用一个历时20年的大叶藻恢复项目数据集验证了该方法。令人意外的是，我们还在开发率和竞争强度的相图中发现了一个特定区域，在该区域内开发更多物种反而能够提高生物多样性。该计算工具为在保护或恢复互利生态系统生物多样性的前提下制定采伐、捕捞、开发或森林砍伐计划提供了有价值的见解。

Ecosystems are undergoing unprecedented persistent deterioration due to unsustainable anthropogenic human activities, such as overfishing and deforestation, and the effects of such damage on ecological stability are uncertain. Despite recent advances in experimental and theoretical studies on regime shifts and tipping points, theoretical tools for understanding the extinction chain, which is the sequence of species extinctions resulting from overexploitation, are still lacking, especially for large-scale nonlinear networked systems. In this study, we developed a mathematical tool to predict regime shifts and extinction chains in ecosystems under multiple exploitation situations and verified it in 26 real-world mutualistic networks of various sizes and densities. We discovered five phases during the exploitation process: safe, partial extinction, bistable, tristable, and collapse, which enabled the optimal design of restoration strategies for degraded or collapsed systems. We validated our approach using a 20-year dataset from an eelgrass restoration project. Counterintuitively, we also found a specific region in the diagram spanning exploitation rates and competition intensities, where exploiting more species helps increase biodiversity. Our computational tool provides insights into harvesting, fishing, exploitation, or deforestation plans while conserving or restoring the biodiversity of mutualistic ecosystems.