@article{schertzer_implications_2014,
Author = {Schertzer, E. and Staver, A. C. and Levin, S. A.},
Title = {Implications of the spatial dynamics of fire spread
for the bistability of savanna and forest},
Journal = {Journal of Mathematical Biology},
Volume = {70},
Number = {1--2},
Pages = {329--41},
abstract = {The role of fire in expanding the global distribution
of savanna is well recognized. Empirical observations
and modeling suggest that fire spread has a threshold
response to fuel-layer continuity, which sets up a
positive feedback that maintains savanna-forest
bistability. However, modeling has so far failed to
examine fire spread as a spatial process that interacts
with vegetation. Here, we use simple, well-supported
assumptions about fire spread as an infection process
and its effects on trees to ask whether spatial
dynamics qualitatively change the potential for
savanna-forest bistability. We show that the spatial
effects of fire spread are the fundamental reason that
bistability is possible: because fire spread is an
infection process, it exhibits a threshold response to
fuel continuity followed by a rapid increase in fire
size. Other ecological processes affecting fire spread
may also contribute including temporal variability in
demography or fire spread. Finally, including the
potential for spatial aggregation increases the
potential both for savanna-forest bistability and for
savanna and forest to coexist in a landscape mosaic.},
doi = {10.1007/s00285-014-0757-z},
issn = {1432-1416},
language = {ENG},
month = feb,
pmid = {24570348},
year = 2014
}