Microclimate feedbacks sustain power law clustering of encroaching coastal woody vegetation.

ABSTRACT: The spatial pattern of vegetation patchiness may follow universal characteristic rules when the system is close to critical transitions between alternative states, which improves the anticipation of ecosystem-level state changes which are currently difficult to detect in real systems. However, the spatial patterning of vegetation patches in temperature-driven ecosystems have not been investigated yet. Here, using high-resolution imagery from 1972 to 2013 and a stochastic cellular automata model, we show that in a North American coastal ecosystem where woody plant encroachment has been happening, the size distribution of woody patches follows a power law when the system approaches a critical transition, which is sustained by the local positive feedbacks between vegetation and the surroundin

SUBMITTER: Huang H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8208994 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature