IMSc Webinar

Ecosystem responses at a different level of ecological organizations in response to climate change and different collective dynamical states

Bidesh Kumar Bera

Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Israel

In the current era, global climate change significantly affects the ecosystem function and stability.
One particular concern is the process of desertification phenomena and biodiversity loss in drylands. Drylands

regions are characterized by a scarcity of water due to low average annual precipitation levels. In such a water-
limited environment, various types of self-organizing vegetation patterns emerge. I will discuss the emergence of

vegetation patchiness, as a symmetry-breaking pattern-formation phenomenon in resource-limited systems. The
ecosystem response to climate change is likely to impact at different levels of ecological organizations, ranging
from the plant organism level to the population level to the community level. I will discuss the complex
relationship among these ecosystem levels in response to climate extremes. I will discuss how spatial patterning
affects the functional biodiversity of an ecosystem and will discuss some pathways to relax the environmental
stress which are essential for assessing the actual resilience of ecosystems in response to climate variability. Using
the spatiotemporal mathematical model and empirical evidence, I will discuss the underlying driving mechanism
of various types of spatial vegetation patterns. Environmental changes can trigger both ecological and
evolutionary responses that could stabilise or destabilize the ecosystem dynamics. I will further discuss how
spatial patterning and repatterning inhibit the undesired evolutionary shift in the context of the eco-evolutionary
dynamics in response to environmental change. Comprehending the pathways of ecosystem response is crucial in
formulating management strategies to avoid reaching tipping points. A nontrivial collective dynamical state
appears when two or more dynamical entities are interacting, such as quenching of oscillations, synchrony and
desynchrony of oscillations and other dynamical states as well. I will discuss such emerging behaviours in a
network of coupled oscillators.


zoom.us/j/96425618845

Meeting ID: 964 2561 8845
Passcode: 812289