Related papers: Fairy circle landscapes under the sea
Vast landscapes extending from southern Angola, Namibia, and South Africa exhibit localised barren patches of vegetation called fairy circles. They consist of isolated or randomly distributed circular areas devoid of any vegetation. They…
Large responses of ecosystems to small changes in the conditions--regime shifts--are of great interest and importance. In spatially extended ecosystems, these shifts may be local or global. Using empirical data and mathematical modeling, we…
The minimal ecological requirements for formation of regular vegetation patterns in semiarid systems have been recently questioned. Against the general belief that a combination of facilitative and competitive interactions is necessary,…
Patterns in a semiarid ecosystem are important because they directly and indirectly affect ecological processes, biodiversity, and ecosystem resilience. Understanding the causes and effects of these patterns is critical for long-term land…
Due to climatic changes, excessive grazing, and deforestation, semi-arid and arid ecosystems are vulnerable to desertification and land degradation. As aridity increases, vegetation cover often self-organizes into spatial patterns before…
Regular vegetation patterns in semiarid ecosystems are believed to arise from the interplay between long-range competition and facilitation processes acting at smaller distances. We show that, under rather general conditions, long-range…
Tropical rainforests exhibit a rich repertoire of spatial patterns emerging from the intricate relationship between the microscopic interaction between species. In particular, the distribution of vegetation clusters can shed much light on…
We propose a general population dynamics model for two seagrass species growing and interacting in two spatial dimensions. The model includes spatial terms accounting for the clonal growth characteristics of seagrasses, and coupling between…
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.…
A feature common to many models of vegetation pattern formation in semi-arid ecosystems is a sequence of qualitatively different patterned states, "gaps -> labyrinth -> spots", that occurs as a parameter representing precipitation…
The formation of vegetation patterns in the arid and the semi-arid climatic zones is studied. Threshold for the biomass of the perennial flora is shown to be a relevant factor, leading to a frozen disordered patterns in the arid zone. In…
Patches of vegetation consist of dense clusters of shrubs, grass, or trees, often found to be circular characteristic size, defined by the properties of the vegetation and terrain. Therefore, vegetation patches can be interpreted as…
Seagrass meadows contribute to the conservation of marine ecosystems, reduction in global warming impacts and pathogen controls. However, the decline in seagrass habitats due to environmental loads has become an urgent global issue. One way…
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…
Pristine coastal shallow systems are usually dominated by extensive meadows of seagrass species, which are assumed to take advantage of nutrient supply from sediment. An increasing nutrient input is thought to favour phytoplankton,…
Understanding the causes and effects of spatial vegetation patterns is a fundamental problem in ecology, especially because these can be used as early predictors of catastrophic shifts such as desertification processes. Empirical studies of…
Natural ecosystems are characterized by striking diversity of form and functions and yet exhibit deep symmetries emerging across scales of space, time and organizational complexity. Species-area relationships and species-abundance…
Landscapes that are rhythmically dissected by natural drainage channels exist in various geologic and climatic settings. Such landscapes are characterized by a length-scale for the lateral spacing between channels. We observe a small-scale…
Mediterranean rangelands should be conceived as socio-ecological landscapes (SEL) because of the close interaction and coevolution between socio-economic and natural systems. A significant threat to these Mediterranean rangelands is related…
Localised patterns are often observed in models for dryland vegetation, both as peaks of vegetation in a desert state and as gaps within a vegetated state, known as `fairy circles'. Recent results from radial spatial dynamics show that…