Networks of forest ecosystems: Mathematical modeling of their biotic pump mechanism and resilience to certain patch deforestation

Abstract

We propose an innovative mathematical model for studying the dynamics of a complex network of forest ecosystems, in which two forest patches interact which each other through water exchanges. Our model reproduces a recently analyzed principle of constant precipitation quantity over densely forested areas. We perform a stability and bifurcation analysis and show that the distance separating two forest ecosystems can attract a part of the network to an extinction state. We incorporate a randomly generated perturbation modeling deforestation and investigate the effect of the level of deforestation on the equilibrium states of the network. We also exhibit an original type of synchronization in the case of densely distributed forest ecosystems.