ArticleProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America2023
Phase-separation physics underlies new theory for the resilience of patchy ecosystems.
Article in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 7 papers.
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7 citing papers in PubMed.
- Density-dependent aggregation underlies spatial self-organization in coastal dunes.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- A connectivity threshold between grass patches amplifies coastal dune formation.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Causes and consequences of disordered hyperuniformity in global drylands.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- The population dynamics of clustered consumer-resource spatial patterns: Insights from the demographics of a Turing mechanism.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- Nonreciprocal feedback induces migrating oblique and horizontal banded vegetation patterns in hyperarid landscapes.Scientific reports · 2024Article
- Conservative or dissipative? Two distinct processes for spatial pattern emergence.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
- Phase-separation physics underlies new theory for the resilience of patchy ecosystems.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2023Article
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
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Abstract
Spatial self-organization of ecosystems into large-scale (from micron to meters) patterns is an important phenomenon in ecology, enabling organisms to cope with harsh environmental conditions and buffering ecosystem degradation. Scale-dependent feedbacks provide the predominant conceptual framework for self-organized spatial patterns, explaining regular patterns observed in, e.g., arid ecosystems or mussel beds. Here, we highlight an alternative mechanism for self-organized patterns, based on the aggregation of a biotic or abiotic species, such as herbivores, sediment, or nutrients. Using a generalized mathematical model, we demonstrate that ecosystems with aggregation-driven patterns have fundamentally different dynamics and resilience properties than ecosystems with patterns that formed through scale-dependent feedbacks. Building on the physics theory for phase-separation dynamics, we show that patchy ecosystems with aggregation patterns are more vulnerable than systems with patterns formed through scale-dependent feedbacks, especially at small spatial scales. This is because local disturbances can trigger large-scale redistribution of resources, amplifying local degradation. Finally, we show that insights from physics, by providing mechanistic understanding of the initiation of aggregation patterns and their tendency to coarsen, provide a new indicator framework to signal proximity to ecological tipping points and subsequent ecosystem degradation for this class of patchy ecosystems.
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