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In a wide variety of natural systems, closely-related microbial strains coexist stably, resulting in high levels of fine-scale biodiversity. However, the mechanisms that stabilize this coexistence are not fully understood. Spatial…
Vegetation in semi-arid environments self-organizes into striking spatial patterns -- bands, spots, labyrinths, and gaps -- with characteristic wavelengths on the order of tens to hundreds of meters. Existing reaction-diffusion models…
Crescent shaped barchan dunes are highly mobile dunes that are usually presented as a prototypical model of sand dunes. Although they have been theoretically shown to be unstable when considered separately, it is well known that they form…
Vegetation can modify the planetary surface albedo via the Charney mechanism, as plants are usually darker than the bare surface of the continents. We updated ESTM (Earth-like Surface Temperature Model) to incorporate the presence,…
Understanding how a diversity of plants in agroecosystems affects the adaptation of pathogens in a key issue in agroecology. We analyze PDE systems describing the dynamics of adaptation of two phenotypically structured populations, under…
We study the dynamics of a starving random walk in general spatial dimension $d$. This model represents an idealized description for the fate of an unaware forager whose motion is not affected by the presence or absence of resources. The…
Summary 1. Infectious disease outbreaks in plants threaten ecosystems, agricultural crops and food trade. Currently, several fungal diseases are affecting forests worldwide, posing a major risk to tree species, habitats and consequently…
Ecosystems, which are intricate amalgams of biological communities and their surrounding environments, continually evolve under the influence of their myriad interactions. The world is currently facing intensifying environmental…
Living tissues undergo wetting transitions: On a surface, they can either form a droplet-like cell aggregate or spread as a monolayer of migrating cells. Tissue wetting depends not only on the chemical but also on the mechanical properties…
Current research challenges in sustainability science require us to consider nonlinear changes e.g. shifts that do not happen gradually but can be sudden and difficult to predict. Central questions are therefore how we can prevent harmful…
Vegetation patterns are abundant in arid and semiarid ecosystems, but how they form remains unclear. One of the most extended theories lies in the existence of scale-dependent feedbacks (SDF) in plant-to-plant and plant-water interactions.…
Logistic growth on a static heterogenous substrate is studied both above and below the drift-induced delocalization transition. Using stochastic, agent-based simulations the delocalization of the highest eigenfunction is connected with the…
We introduce a new model for large scale evolution and extinction in which species are organized into food chains. The system evolves by two processes: origination/speciation and extinction. In the model, extinction of a given species can…
Dryland vegetation ecosystems are known to be susceptible to critical transitions between alternative stable states when subjected to external forcing. Such transitions are often discussed through the framework of bifurcation theory, but…
The Alaskan landscape has undergone substantial changes in recent decades, most notably the expansion of shrubs and trees across the Arctic. We developed a dynamic statistical model to quantify the impact of climate change on the structural…
We identify the phase of a cycle as a new critical factor for tipping points (critical transitions) in cyclic systems subject to time-varying external conditions. As an example, we consider how contemporary climate variability induces…
Changes in the frequency, duration, and severity of climate extremes are forecast to occur under global climate change. The impacts of climate extremes on forest productivity and health are complicated by potential interactions with…
We investigate the nature of genetic drift acting at the leading edge of range expansions, building on recent results in [Hallatschek et al., Proc.\ Natl.\ Acad.\ Sci., \textbf{104}(50): 19926 - 19930 (2007)]. A well mixed population of two…
Macroscopic changes of group behavior of eusocial insects are studied from the viewpoint of non-equilibrium phase transitions. Recent combined study of experiments and mathematical modeling by the group led by the third author suggests that…
Ecosystems are complex systems, currently experiencing several threats associated with global warming, intensive exploitation, and human-driven habitat degradation. Such threats are pushing ecosystems to the brink of collapse. Because of a…