Regime shifts in bistable water-stressed ecosystems due to amplification of stochastic rainfall patterns

We develop a framework that casts the point water-vegetation dynamics under stochastic rainfall forcing as a continuous-time random walk (CTRW), which yields an evolution equation for the joint probability density function (PDF) of soil-moisture and biomass. We find regime shifts in the steady-state...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Cueto-Felgueroso, Luis (Contributor), Dentz, Marco (Author), Juanes, Ruben (Contributor)
Other Authors: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering (Contributor)
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: American Physical Society, 2015-06-01T13:59:22Z.
Subjects:
Online Access:Get fulltext
LEADER 01572 am a22002173u 4500
001 97135
042 |a dc 
100 1 0 |a Cueto-Felgueroso, Luis  |e author 
100 1 0 |a Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering  |e contributor 
100 1 0 |a Cueto-Felgueroso, Luis  |e contributor 
100 1 0 |a Juanes, Ruben  |e contributor 
700 1 0 |a Dentz, Marco  |e author 
700 1 0 |a Juanes, Ruben  |e author 
245 0 0 |a Regime shifts in bistable water-stressed ecosystems due to amplification of stochastic rainfall patterns 
260 |b American Physical Society,   |c 2015-06-01T13:59:22Z. 
856 |z Get fulltext  |u http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/97135 
520 |a We develop a framework that casts the point water-vegetation dynamics under stochastic rainfall forcing as a continuous-time random walk (CTRW), which yields an evolution equation for the joint probability density function (PDF) of soil-moisture and biomass. We find regime shifts in the steady-state PDF as a consequence of changes in the rainfall structure, which flips the relative strengths of the system attractors, even for the same mean precipitation. Through an effective potential, we quantify the impact of rainfall variability on ecosystem resilience and conclude that amplified rainfall regimes reduce the resilience of water-stressed ecosystems, even if the mean annual precipitation remains constant. 
520 |a Spain. Ministerio de Economia y Competitividad ("Ramon y Cajal" Fellowship Grant RyC-2012-11704) 
546 |a en 
655 7 |a Article 
773 |t Physical Review E