Journal ArticleDOI
Diversity of Vegetation Patterns and Desertification
TLDR
A new model for vegetation patterns is introduced that predicts transitions from bare soil at low precipitation to homogeneous vegetation at high precipitation, through intermediate states of spot, stripe, and hole patterns and predicts wide precipitation ranges where different stable states coexist.Abstract:
A new model for vegetation patterns is introduced. The model reproduces a wide range of patterns observed in water-limited regions, including drifting bands, spots, and labyrinths. It predicts transitions from bare soil at low precipitation to homogeneous vegetation at high precipitation, through intermediate states of spot, stripe, and hole patterns. It also predicts wide precipitation ranges where different stable states coexist. Using these predictions we propose a novel explanation of desertification phenomena and a new approach to classifying aridity.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
Self-Organized Patchiness and Catastrophic Shifts in Ecosystems
TL;DR: A review of recent studies on various ecosystems that link self-organized patchiness to catastrophic shifts between ecosystem states and the implications for management and recovery strategies for such ecosystems.
Journal ArticleDOI
Regular pattern formation in real ecosystems
Max Rietkerk,Johan van de Koppel +1 more
TL;DR: This work provides a conceptual framework explaining how scale-dependent feedback determines regular pattern formation in ecosystems, and how this affects the response of ecosystems to global environmental change.
Journal ArticleDOI
Self-organization of vegetation in arid ecosystems
Max Rietkerk,Maarten C. Boerlijst,F. van Langevelde,Reinier HilleRisLambers,van de Johan Koppel,Lalit Kumar,H.H.T. Prins,A. de Roos +7 more
TL;DR: The results show that self-organized vegetation patterns observed in arid ecosystems might all be the result of spatial self-organization, caused by one single mechanism: water infiltrates faster into vegetated ground than into bare soil, leading to net displacement of surface water to vegetated patches.
Journal ArticleDOI
Generic Indicators of Ecological Resilience: Inferring the Chance of a Critical Transition
TL;DR: An emerging family of methods for quantifying resilience on the basis of observations based on the phenomenon of critical slowing down, which implies that recovery upon small perturbations becomes slower as a system approaches a tipping point, is described.
Journal ArticleDOI
Ecosystem Engineers: From Pattern Formation to Habitat Creation
TL;DR: A mathematical model is developed for a pair of ecosystem engineers commonly found in drylands: plants forming vegetation patterns and cyanobacteria forming soil crusts that highlights conditions for habitat creation and for high habitat richness, and suggests a novel mechanism for species loss events as a result of environmental changes.
References
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Book
Environmental soil physics
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present a basic relationship between water and soil properties, including the properties of water in relation to porous media, properties of soil structure and aggregation, and the potential of Soil Water.
Journal ArticleDOI
United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification.
TL;DR: Multilingual fact sheets have been developed on topics including the causes and consequences of desertification partnership agreements between aid donors and affected states and how desertificatjon is fought in certain regions.