Climate and land-use changes are reshaping ecosystems by disrupting interactions between vegetation, soils, and abiotic factors. These changes influence ecosystem stability, resource distribution, and resilience to disturbances. Vegetation pattern formation—emerging from plant-environment interactions—plays a key role in regulating water, nutrients, and soil conservation, particularly in vulnerable landscapes such as drylands, wetlands, forests, and rangelands. While some theories suggest vegetation patterns signal impending desertification, others propose they enhance resilience by localizing external stresses. Similarly, landform-soil-vegetation feedbacks contribute to ecosystem stability, influencing carbon capture, soil erosion, and landscape connectivity.
Understanding the origin and role of these patterns in ecosystem resilience against environmental stresses represents a significant endeavor that only multidisciplinary research can achieve. This session invites theoretical, empirical, and modeling studies on vegetation-soil interactions, ecogeomorphology, ecohydrology, and the implications of spatial organization for ecosystem resilience. We aim to bridge theory and observation, fostering collaboration across disciplines to better understand landscape responses to climatic and anthropogenic pressures.
Vegetation pattern formation and ecosystem stability: theoretical and empirical approaches to interactions with soils, landforms, and climate change