Publication
Title
Modelling tree-grass coexistence in water-limited ecosystems
Author
Abstract
Tree-grass coexistence is commonly observed in arid and semi-arid ecosystems. Many of these ecosys-tems are undergoing a shift from grassland to tree dominance or the opposite. Therefore, exploring themechanism of tree-grass coexistence and studying how ecosystems respond to environmental changeare critical to understanding such shift. We construct a tree-grass-water model by considering the Wal-ters two layer hypothesis, i.e., the grass species only access to the shallow soil water, while the treecan uptake both the shallow and deep soil water. Results show that the tree-grass coexistence regionincreases with increasing their niche separation. Hence, the vertical niche separation between trees andgrass with respect to limiting water resources might be one of mechanisms for tree-grass coexistence.Besides, both tree and grass display positive responses to precipitation, but surprisingly, there exists acatastrophe that the mean vegetation density first rapidly increases, but then quickly decreases as pre-cipitation increases in the tree-grass-water model with infiltration feedback. Most likely, this catastropheis due primarily to the periodical fluctuation of vegetation density and water caused by its intrinsic infil-tration feedback. Overall, our study provides new insights into the dynamics of tree-grass in arid andsemi-arid ecosystems.
Language
English
Source (journal)
Ecological modelling. - Amsterdam
Publication
Amsterdam : 2017
ISSN
0304-3800
DOI
10.1016/J.ECOLMODEL.2017.07.014
Volume/pages
360 (2017) , p. 387-398
ISI
000411771800035
Full text (Publisher's DOI)
Full text (open access)
Full text (publisher's version - intranet only)
UAntwerpen
Faculty/Department
Research group
Publication type
Subject
Affiliation
Publications with a UAntwerp address
External links
Web of Science
Record
Identifier
Creation 21.08.2017
Last edited 09.10.2023
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