标题： 仙女圈中的渐进制度变化 显示英文标题

标题： Gradual Regime Shifts in Fairy Circles

摘要： 生态系统对条件的小变化产生巨大响应——制度转变——引起了极大的兴趣和重要性。 在空间扩展的生态系统中，这些转变可能是局部的或全局的。 使用实证数据和数学模型，我们以纳米比亚仙女圈生态系统为例，研究了制度转变的动力学。 我们的结果基于生态系统动力学，为仙女圈作为由水分-植被相互作用驱动的自组织现象的观点提供了新的支持。 该研究进一步表明，仙女圈的形成和消亡过程对应于替代稳定状态之间的空间受限转换。 这种转换的级联，在各种模式形成系统中可能发生，导致渐进而非突然的制度转变。 显示英文摘要

摘要： Large responses of ecosystems to small changes in the conditions--regime shifts--are of great interest and importance. In spatially extended ecosystems, these shifts may be local or global. Using empirical data and mathematical modeling, we investigated the dynamics of the Namibian fairy circle ecosystem as a case study of regime shifts in a pattern-forming ecosystem. Our results provide new support, based on the dynamics of the ecosystem, for the view of fairy circles as a self-organization phenomenon driven by water-vegetation interactions. The study further suggests that fairy circle birth and death processes correspond to spatially confined transitions between alternative stable states. Cascades of such transitions, possible in various pattern-forming systems, result in gradual rather than abrupt regime shifts.