Water availability is a major environmental driver affecting riparian and wetland vegetation. The interaction between water table fluctuations and vegetation in a stochastic environment contributes to the complexity of the dynamics of these ecosystems. We investigate the possible emergence of spatial patterns induced by spatio-temporal stochastic resonance in a simple model of groundwater-dependent ecosystems. These spatio-temporal dynamics are driven by the combined effect of three components: (i) an additive white Gaussian noise, accounting for external random disturbances such as fires or fluctuations in rain water availability, (ii) a weak periodic modulation in time, describing hydrological drivers such as seasonal fluctuations of water table depth, and (iii) a spatial coupling term, which takes into account the ability of vegetation to spread and colonize other parts of the landscape. A suitable cooperation between these three terms is able to give rise to ordered structures which show spatial and temporal coherence, and are statistically steady in time.

Spatio-temporal stochastic resonance induces patterns in wetland vegetation dynamics / Scarsoglio, Stefania; D’Odorico, P.; Laio, Francesco; Ridolfi, Luca. - In: ECOLOGICAL COMPLEXITY. - ISSN 1476-945X. - ELETTRONICO. - 10:(2012), pp. 93-101. [10.1016/j.ecocom.2011.11.003]

Spatio-temporal stochastic resonance induces patterns in wetland vegetation dynamics

SCARSOGLIO, STEFANIA;LAIO, FRANCESCO;RIDOLFI, LUCA
2012

Abstract

Water availability is a major environmental driver affecting riparian and wetland vegetation. The interaction between water table fluctuations and vegetation in a stochastic environment contributes to the complexity of the dynamics of these ecosystems. We investigate the possible emergence of spatial patterns induced by spatio-temporal stochastic resonance in a simple model of groundwater-dependent ecosystems. These spatio-temporal dynamics are driven by the combined effect of three components: (i) an additive white Gaussian noise, accounting for external random disturbances such as fires or fluctuations in rain water availability, (ii) a weak periodic modulation in time, describing hydrological drivers such as seasonal fluctuations of water table depth, and (iii) a spatial coupling term, which takes into account the ability of vegetation to spread and colonize other parts of the landscape. A suitable cooperation between these three terms is able to give rise to ordered structures which show spatial and temporal coherence, and are statistically steady in time.
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11583/2497103
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