Spatial patterns in the tropical forest reveal connections between negative feedback, aggregation and abundance
Populations and Evolution
2014-11-11 v1
Abstract
The spatial arrangement of trees in a tropical forest reflects the interplay between aggregating processes, like dispersal limitation, and negative feedback that induces effective repulsion among individuals. Monitoring the variance-mean ratio for conspecific individuals along length-scales, we show that the effect of negative feedback is dominant at short scales, while aggregation characterizes the large-scale patterns. A comparison of different species indicates, surprisingly, that both aggregation and negative feedback scales are related to the overall abundance of the species. This suggests a bottom-up control mechanism, in which the negative feedback dictates the dispersal kernel and the overall abundance.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1411.2237,
title = {Spatial patterns in the tropical forest reveal connections between negative feedback, aggregation and abundance},
author = {Efrat Seri and Nadav M. Shnerb},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1411.2237},
year = {2014}
}