PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Bonachela, Juan A.
AU  - Pringle, Robert M.
AU  - Sheffer, Efrat
AU  - Coverdale, Tyler C.
AU  - Guyton, Jennifer A.
AU  - Caylor, Kelly K.
AU  - Levin, Simon A.
AU  - Tarnita, Corina E.
TI  - Termite mounds can increase the robustness of dryland ecosystems to climatic change
AID  - 10.1126/science.1261487
DP  - 2015 Feb 06
TA  - Science
PG  - 651--655
VI  - 347
IP  - 6222
4099  - http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6222/651.short
4100  - http://science.sciencemag.org/content/347/6222/651.full
SO  - Science2015 Feb 06; 347
AB  - Spotty vegetation patterns in tropical savannas and grasslands can be a warning sign of imminent desertification. However, Bonachela et al. find that termites can also produce spotty patterns. Their theoretical study, confirmed by field data from Kenya, shows that patterns produced by termite mounds are not harbingers of desertification. Indeed, the presence of termites buffers these ecosystems against climate change.Science, this issue p. 651 Self-organized spatial vegetation patterning is widespread and has been described using models of scale-dependent feedback between plants and water on homogeneous substrates. As rainfall decreases, these models yield a characteristic sequence of patterns with increasingly sparse vegetation, followed by sudden collapse to desert. Thus, the final, spot-like pattern may provide early warning for such catastrophic shifts. In many arid ecosystems, however, termite nests impart substrate heterogeneity by altering soil properties, thereby enhancing plant growth. We show that termite-induced heterogeneity interacts with scale-dependent feedbacks to produce vegetation patterns at different spatial grains. Although the coarse-grained patterning resembles that created by scale-dependent feedback alone, it does not indicate imminent desertification. Rather, mound-field landscapes are more robust to aridity, suggesting that termites may help stabilize ecosystems under global change.