Patterned vegetation and rainfall intermittency.
We study a mathematical model for the dynamics of patterned dryland vegetation in the presence of rainfall intermittency, adopting a spatially explicit approach. We find that most results found for constant precipitation carry over to the case of intermittent rainfall, with a few important novelties. For intermittent precipitation, the functional forms of the water uptake and consequently of the vegetation growth rate play an important role. Nonlinear, concave-up forms of water uptake as a function of soil moisture lead to a beneficial effect of rainfall intermittency, with a stronger effect when vegetation feedbacks are absent. The results obtained with the explicit-space model employed here are in keeping with those provided by simpler, implicit-space approaches, and provide a more complete view of vegetation dynamics in arid ecosystems.
Kletter
A Y
AY
Department of Physics, Ben Gurion University, Beer Sheva 84105, Israel.
von Hardenberg
J
J
Meron
E
E
Provenzale
A
A
D018533:Biomass; D003889:Desert Climate; D017753:Ecosystem; D008954:Models, Biological; D063245:Plant Development; D011891:Rain; D012621:Seasons; D012987:Soil
D012987:Soil