Self-organization of plants in a dryland ecosystem: Symmetry breaking and critical cluster size

Ariel G. Meyra, Guillermo J. Zarragoicoechea, and Victor A. Kuz
Phys. Rev. E 91, 052810 – Published 19 May 2015

Abstract

Periodical patterns of vegetation in an arid or semiarid ecosystem are described using statistical mechanics and Monte Carlo numerical simulation technique. Plants are characterized by the area that each individual occupies and a facilitation-competition pairwise interaction. Assuming that external resources (precipitation, solar radiation, nutrients, etc.) are available to the ecosystem, it is possible to obtain the persistent configurations of plants compatible with an equitable distribution of resources maximizing the Shannon entropy. Variation of vegetation patterns with density, critical cluster size, and facilitation distance are predicted. Morphological changes of clusters are shown to be a function of the external resources. As a final remark, it is proposed that an early warning of desertification could be detected from the coefficient of variation of the mean cluster size together with the distribution of cluster sizes.

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  • Received 28 September 2014
  • Revised 1 April 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevE.91.052810

©2015 American Physical Society

Authors & Affiliations

Ariel G. Meyra1, Guillermo J. Zarragoicoechea1,2,3,*, and Victor A. Kuz1

  • 1IFLYSIB (UNLP, CONICET), 59 No. 789, B1900BTE La Plata, Argentina
  • 2Comisión de Investigaciones Científicas de la Provincia de Buenos Aires, Argentina
  • 3Diseño Industrial, Facultad de Bellas Artes, UNLP, La Plata, Argentina

  • *Corresponding author: vasco@iflysib.unlp.edu.ar

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Vol. 91, Iss. 5 — May 2015

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