Forest Dynamics with Canopy Gap Expansion and Stochastic Ising Model

Abstract

Importance of the influence of neighboring canopy gaps upon new gap creation has been clarified by the ecological study of a neotropical forest on Barro Colorado Island (BCI), Panama. A stochastic lattice model for the forest dynamics with interacting canopy gap expansion was introduced by Kubo et al. We give a theorem showing a condition that this model can be regarded as a stochastic Ising model, and that its stationary state is exactly given by a Gibbs state. Using this theorem, we obtain a Gibbs state which remarkably well approximates the real gap-size distribution in BCI.