Interaction between localized vegetation patches and gaps in water-limited environments

TL;DR

This paper derives a simple ecological model near the Lifshitz point to study interactions between vegetation patches and gaps, revealing conditions for stable formations and characterizing their interactions.

Contribution

It provides a general derivation of a vegetation model without specifying Kernel shape, analyzing interactions between patches and gaps, and deriving interaction potentials.

Findings

Gaps can attract or repel depending on distance, enabling stable gap clusters.

Localized patches always repel, preventing stable patch clusters.

Analytical interaction potentials are derived and numerically validated.

Abstract

Close to the critical point associated with nascent of bistability and large wavelength pattern forming regime, {\it the Lifshitz point}, the dynamics of many ecological spatially extended systems can be reduced to a simple partial differential equation. This weak gradient approximation is greatly useful for the investigation of localized vegetation patches and gaps. In this contribution, we present a general derivation of the most simple vegetation model without any specification of the shape of Kernel used to describe the facilitative and the competitive interactions between individual plants. The coefficients of the obtained model depend on the choice of the form of the Kernel under consideration. Based on this simple vegetation model, we focus more on gaps and patches interaction. In the case of gaps, the interaction alternates between attractive and repulsive depending on the distance separating the gaps. This allows for the stabilization of bounded states and clusters of gaps. However, in the case of localized patches, the interaction is always repulsive. In this former case, bounded states of patches are excluded. The analytical formula of the interaction potential is derived and reviewed for both types of interactions and checked by numerical investigation of the model equation.