A new statistical dynamic analysis on vegetation patterns in land ecosystems

As complex self-adaptive systems, land ecosystems usually tend to produce intricate vegetation patterns under specific environmental constraints, which have ever puzzled us for decades. In this paper, a universal principle on pattern formation of land ecosystems is highlighted as: a land ecosystem always tries to find an optimal process to acquire maximized flux under a certain constraint or price. The underlying microscopic dynamic mechanism that induces complex vegetation patterns in land ecosystems is then revealed. Based on the Holdridge life zone system, evolutionary dynamic processes and structural classifications of several typical vegetation patterns are then simulated and discussed. Good agreements between theoretical analyses and numerical results are found. This paper demonstrates that the new theoretical analyses and simulation technique can be possibly applied to the whole land ecosystem, not only benefiting academic study on the formation and dynamics of vegetation patterns, but also providing implications for vegetation classification, vegetation protection and soil erosion control. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.