SPATIAL SELF-ORGANIZATION IN ECOLOGY - PRETTY PATTERNS OR ROBUST REALITY

Citation
P. Rohani et al., SPATIAL SELF-ORGANIZATION IN ECOLOGY - PRETTY PATTERNS OR ROBUST REALITY, Trends in ecology & evolution, 12(2), 1997, pp. 70-74
Citations number
50
Categorie Soggetti
Genetics & Heredity",Ecology
ISSN journal
01695347
Volume
12
Issue
2
Year of publication
1997
Pages
70 - 74
Database
ISI
SICI code
0169-5347(1997)12:2<70:SSIE-P>2.0.ZU;2-3
Abstract
Many seemingly plausible mathematical models of small-scale ecological interactions predict the self-organization of dynamic, coherent and l arge-scale spatial patterns (e.g. spirals). if true, such patterns wou ld have important ecological and evolutionary consequences, For the mo st part, however, empirical studies have not corroborated their existe nce, suggesting erroneous dynamics in the models, shortcomings in empi rical methodology, or both. Arguments for categorically dismissing sel f-organized patterns have been based on their assumed sensitivity to s ymmetry-breaking stochastic noise, However, many plausible mechanisms for generating patterns are robust to noise, and consequently broken s ymmetry is insufficient grounds for dismissing these self-organized pa tterns.