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Ecology

Scaling laws in the drier

Nature volume 449, pages 151–153 (2007)Cite this article

The vegetation of arid ecosystems displays scale-free, self-organized spatial patterns. Monitoring of such patterns could provide warning signals of the occurrence of sudden shifts towards desert conditions.

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Figure 1: Mutual benefits.

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Figure 2: Vegetation states in arid and semi-arid ecosystems.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Ricard Solé is in the ICREA-Complex Systems Laboratory, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Dr Aiguader 80, 08003 Barcelona, Spain. ricard.sole@upf.edu,

    Ricard Solé

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  1. Ricard Solé
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Solé, R. Scaling laws in the drier. Nature 449, 151–153 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/449151a

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