Gapped vegetation patterns: Crown/root allometry and snaking bifurcation. (April 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Cisternas, Jaime; Escaff, Daniel; Clerc, Marcel G.; Lefever, René; Tlidi, Mustapha
• Is Part Of: Chaos, solitons and fractals. Volume 133(2020)
• Publication Date: 2020-04
• Subjects: Vegetation patterns -- Vegetation gaps -- Nonlocal facilitation -- Competitive interactions -- Symmetry-breaking instabilities -- Snaking bifurcation -- Degradation of arid ecosystems; 00-01 -- 99-00; Chaotic behavior in systems -- Periodicals; Solitons -- Periodicals; Fractals -- Periodicals; Chaotic behavior in systems; Fractals; Solitons; Periodicals; 003.7
• DOI: 10.1016/j.chaos.2020.109617
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0960-0779

Abstract

Highlights: Vegetation patches in Northwestern Africa (Kenya), Northwest Australia, and the ProNamibia zone exhibit a gapped selforganized vegetation pattern. The crown/root allometry modifies the position of the critical point associated with bistability and induces a new branch of low biomass. The snaking bifurcation diagram for gapped solutions is constructed. Abstract: Nonuniform spatial distributions of vegetation in scarce environments consist of either gaps, bands often called tiger bush or patches that can be either self-organized or spatially localized in space. When the level of aridity is increased, the uniform vegetation cover develops localized regions of lower biomass. These spatial structures are generically called vegetation gaps. They are embedded in a uniform vegetation cover. The spatial distribution of vegetation gaps can be either periodic or randomly distributed. We investigate the combined influence of the facilitative and the competitive nonlocal interactions between plants, and the role of crow/root allometry, on the formation of gapped vegetation patterns. We characterize first the formation of the periodic distribution of gaps by drawing their bifurcation diagram. We then characterize localized and aperiodic distributions of vegetation gaps in terms of their snaking bifurcation diagram.