Related papers: The soil seed bank can buffer long-term compositio…
The process of desertification in the semi-arid climatic zone is considered by many as a catastrophic regime shift, since the positive feedback of vegetation density on growth rates yields a system that admits alternative steady states.…
The scarcity of water characterising drylands forces vegetation to adopt appropriate survival strategies. Some of these generate water-vegetation feedback mechanisms that can lead to spatial self-organisation of vegetation, as it has been…
Ecological networks exhibit non-random structural patterns, such as modularity and nestedness, which indicate ecosystem stability, species diversity, and connectance. Such structure-stability relationships are well known. However, another…
In the present article, we investigate the effects of dormancy on an abstract population genetic level. We first provide a short review of seed bank models in population genetics, and the role of dormancy for the interplay of evolutionary…
Microbial biomass carbon (MBC), a crucial soil labile carbon fraction, is the most active component of the soil organic carbon (SOC) that regulates bio-geochemical processes in terrestrial ecosystems. Some studies in the literature ignore…
In this work, we present and analyze a general framework for vegetation dynamics in arid and semi-arid ecosystems in which non-local interactions are purely competitive. The generality of the formulation enables a systematic search for…
Microbial ecosystems are remarkably diverse, stable, and often consist of a balanced mixture of core and peripheral species. Here we propose a conceptual model exhibiting all these emergent properties in quantitative agreement with real…
Soil moisture is an important variable that determines floods, vegetation health, agriculture productivity, and land surface feedbacks to the atmosphere, etc. Accurately modeling soil moisture has important implications in both weather and…
Microbial communities routinely have several alternative stable states observed for the same environmental parameters. Sudden and irreversible transitions between these states make external manipulation of these systems more complicated. To…
Microbial communities routinely have several possible species compositions or community states observed for the same environmental parameters. Changes in these parameters can trigger abrupt and persistent transitions (regime shifts) between…
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…
Natural ecosystems, in particular on the microbial scale, are inhabited by a large number of species. The population size of each species is affected by interactions of individuals with each other and by spatial and temporal changes in…
Mutualisms are key for structuring ecological communities, but they are sensitive to environmental change and fluctuations in population size. Consequently, how mutualisms achieve stability remains an open question in ecological theory.…
Self-organized spatial patterns of vegetation are frequent in drylands and, because pattern shape correlates with water availability, they have been suggested as important indicators of ecosystem health. However, the mechanisms underlying…
Despite the wealth of empirical and theoretical studies, the origin and maintenance of cooperation is still an evolutionary riddle. In this context, ecological life-history traits which affect the efficiency of selection may play a role,…
Grassland ecosystems support a wide range of species and provide key services including food production, carbon storage, biodiversity support, and flood mitigation. However, yield stability in these grassland systems is not yet well…
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…
Heterogeneous systems of active matter exhibit a range of complex emergent dynamical patterns. In particular, it is difficult to predict the properties of the mixed system based on its constituents. These considerations are particularly…
We study optimal two-sector (vegetative and reproductive) allocation models of annual plants in temporally variable environments, that incorporate effects of density dependent lifetime variability and juvenile mortality in a fitness…
The original Hardenberg's model of biomass patterns in arid and semi-arid regions is revisited to extend it to more general non flat regions. It is proposed a technique to study these more generalized (non-flat) regions using both a…