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Exploiting delayed transitions to sustain semiarid ecosystems after catastrophic shifts

Blai Vidiella,, Josep Sardanyés, Ricard V. Solé
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/211987
Blai Vidiella,
1ICREA-Complex Systems Lab, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Dr Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona
2Institut de Biologia Evolutiva, CSIC-UPF, Pg Maritim de la Barceloneta 37, 08003 Barcelona
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Josep Sardanyés
3Centre de Recerca Matemàtica. Edifici C, Campus de Bellaterra 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona
4Barcelona Graduate School of Mathematics (BGSMath) Edifici C, Campus de Bellaterra 08193 Bellaterra, Barcelona
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Ricard V. Solé
1ICREA-Complex Systems Lab, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Dr Aiguader 88, 08003 Barcelona
2Institut de Biologia Evolutiva, CSIC-UPF, Pg Maritim de la Barceloneta 37, 08003 Barcelona
5Santa Fe Institute, 1399 Hyde Park Road, Santa Fe NM 87501, USA
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Abstract

Semiarid ecosystems (including arid, semiarid and dry-subhumid ecosystems) span more than 40% of extant habitats and a similar percentage of human population. As a consequence of global warming, these habitats face future potential shifts towards the desert state characterized by an accelerated loss of diversity and stability leading to collapse. Such possibility has been raised by several mathematical and computational models, along with several early warning signal methods applied to spatial vegetation patterns. Here we show that just after a catastrophic shift has taken place an expected feature is the presence of a ghost, i.e., a delayed extinction associated to the underlying dynamical flows. As a consequence, a system might exhibit for very long times an apparent stationarity hiding in fact an inevitable collapse. Here we explore this problem showing that the ecological ghost is a generic feature of standard models of green-desert transitions including facilitation. If present, the ghost could hide warning signals, since statistical patterns are not be expected to display growing fluctuations over time. We propose and computationally test a novel intervention method based on the restoration of small fractions of desert areas with vegetation as a way to maintain the fragile ecosystem beyond the catastrophic shift caused by a saddle-node bifurcation, taking advantage of the delaying capacity of the ghost just after the bifurcation.

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The copyright holder for this preprint is the author/funder, who has granted bioRxiv a license to display the preprint in perpetuity. It is made available under a CC-BY-NC 4.0 International license.
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Posted October 31, 2017.
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Exploiting delayed transitions to sustain semiarid ecosystems after catastrophic shifts
Blai Vidiella,, Josep Sardanyés, Ricard V. Solé
bioRxiv 211987; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/211987
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Exploiting delayed transitions to sustain semiarid ecosystems after catastrophic shifts
Blai Vidiella,, Josep Sardanyés, Ricard V. Solé
bioRxiv 211987; doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/211987

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