Ecological Complex Systems

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent advances in understanding ecological complex systems by examining noisy nonequilibrium processes, pattern formation, and the interplay of nonlinearity and noise from both experimental and theoretical perspectives.

Contribution

It synthesizes current knowledge on mechanisms driving spatio-temporal patterns and the role of noise in ecological dynamics, highlighting the importance of microscopic rules and local interactions.

Findings

Noise influences pattern formation in ecological systems.

Nonlinear interactions are key to emergent behaviors.

Environmental variability affects system stability.

Abstract

Main aim of this topical issue is to report recent advances in noisy nonequilibrium processes useful to describe the dynamics of ecological systems and to address the mechanisms of spatio-temporal pattern formation in ecology both from the experimental and theoretical points of view. This is in order to understand the dynamical behaviour of ecological complex systems through the interplay between nonlinearity, noise, random and periodic environmental interactions. Discovering the microscopic rules and the local interactions which lead to the emergence of specific global patterns or global dynamical behaviour and the noises role in the nonlinear dynamics is an important, key aspect to understand and then to model ecological complex systems.