Formation of localized states in dryland vegetation: Bifurcation structure and stability

Abstract

In this paper, we study theoretically the emergence of localized states of vegetation close to the onset of desertification. These states are formed through the locking of vegetation fronts, connecting a uniform vegetation state with a bare soil state, which occurs nearby the Maxwell point of the system. To study these structures we consider a universal model of vegetation dynamics in drylands, which has been obtained as the normal form for different vegetation models. Close to the Maxwell point localized gaps and spots of vegetation exist and undergo collapsed snaking. The presence of gaps strongly suggest that the ecosystem may undergo a recovering process. In contrast, the presence of spots may indicate that the ecosystem is close to desertification.

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Cited by in corpus (5)

• Six decades of the FitzHugh-Nagumo model: A guide through its spatio-temporal dynamics and influence across disciplines
• Integrating theory and experiments to link local mechanisms and ecosystem-level consequences of vegetation patterns in drylands
• Transitions between dissipative localized structures in the simplified Gilad-Meron model for dryland plant ecology
• Patterns, localized structures and fronts in a reduced model of clonal plant growth
• Emergence of collapsed snaking related dark and bright Kerr dissipative solitons with quartic-quadratic dispersion