Gapped vegetation patterns: crown/root allometry and snaking bifurcation

TL;DR

This paper explores how plant interactions and allometry influence the formation of gapped vegetation patterns, analyzing their bifurcation structures and the transition from uniform cover to localized gaps.

Contribution

It introduces a combined analysis of facilitative and competitive nonlocal interactions with crow/root allometry in vegetation pattern formation, including bifurcation diagrams for periodic and localized gaps.

Findings

Periodic gap distributions characterized by bifurcation diagrams.

Localized and aperiodic gaps analyzed through snaking bifurcation diagrams.

Vegetation gaps emerge from the interplay of plant interactions and allometry.

Abstract

Nonuniform spatial distributions of vegetation in scarce environments consist of either gaps, bands often called tiger bush or patches that can be either self-organized or spatially localized in space. When the level of aridity is increased, the uniform vegetation cover develops localized regions of lower biomass. These spatial structures are generically called vegetation gaps. They are embedded in a uniform vegetation cover. The spatial distribution of vegetation gaps can be either periodic or randomly distributed. We investigate the combined influence of the facilitative and the competitive nonlocal interactions between plants, and the role of crow/root allometry, on the formation of gapped vegetation patterns. We characterize first the formation of the periodic distribution of gaps by drawing their bifurcation diagram. We then characterize localized and aperiodic distributions of vegetation gaps in terms of their snaking bifurcation diagram.