Biomedical subjects

Paolo D'Odorico

Publications and source records attributed to Paolo D'Odorico.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed2006

A probabilistic analysis of fire-induced tree-grass coexistence in savannas.

Fires play an important role in determining the composition and structure of vegetation in semiarid ecosystems. The study of the interactions between fire and vegetation requires a stochastic approach because of the random and unpredictable nature of fire occurrences. To this end, this article develops a minimalist probabilistic framework to investigate the impact of intermittent fire occurrences on the temporal dynamics of vegetation. This framework is used to analyze the emergence of statistically stable conditions favorable to tree-grass coexistence in savannas. It is found that these conditions can be induced and stabilized by the stochastic fire regime. A decrease in fire frequency leads to bush encroachment, while more frequent and intense fires favor savanna-to-grassland conversions. The positive feedback between fires and vegetation can convert states of tree-grass coexistence in semiarid savannas into bistable conditions, with both woodland and grassland as possible, though mutually exclusive, stable states of the system.

Ecosystem↗

PubMed2005

Noise-induced stability in dryland plant ecosystems.

Dryland plant ecosystems tend to exhibit bistable dynamics with two preferential configurations of bare and vegetated soils. Climate fluctuations are usually believed to act as a source of disturbance on these ecosystems and to reduce their stability and resilience. In contrast, this work shows that random interannual fluctuations of precipitation may lead to the emergence of an intermediate statistically stable condition between the two stable states of the deterministic dynamics of vegetation. As a result, there is an enhancement of ecosystem resilience and a decrease in the likelihood of catastrophic shifts to the desert state.

Biometry↗

PubMed2004

Preferential states in soil moisture and climate dynamics.

Summer precipitation in continental midlatitude regions is significantly contributed by local recycling, i.e., by moisture returning to the atmosphere through evapotranspiration from the same region. On the other hand, reduced soil moisture availability may limit evapotranspiration rates with effects on the planetary boundary layer dynamics through the partitioning between sensible and latent heat fluxes. Thus, a dependence may exist between precipitation and antecedent soil moisture conditions. Here we provide theoretical and experimental evidence in support of the hypothesis that in continental regions summer soil moisture anomalies affect the probability of occurrence of subsequent precipitation. Owing to these feedbacks, two preferential states may arise in summer soil moisture dynamics, which thus tend to remain locked either in a "dry" or a "wet" state, whereas intermediate conditions have low probability of occurrence. In this manner, such land-atmosphere interactions would explain the possible persistence of summer droughts sustained by positive feedbacks in response to initial (spring) surface moisture anomalies.

Journal Article↗

PubMed2004

Phase transitions driven by state-dependent poisson noise.

Nonlinear systems driven by state-dependent Poisson noise are introduced to model the persistence of climatic anomalies in land-atmosphere interaction caused by the soil-moisture dependence of the frequency of rainfall events. It is found that these systems may give rise to bimodal probability distributions, while the state variable randomly persists around the preferential states because of transient dynamics that are opposite to the long-term behavior. Mean-field analysis and numerical simulations of the spatially distributed systems reveal a symmetry-breaking bifurcation for sufficiently strong spatial diffusive couplings and intermediate noise intensities. In such conditions, the initial development of spatial patterns is followed by a stable configuration, selected on the bases of the initial conditions in correspondence of the remnants of the modes of the uncoupled system.

Journal Article↗