UC Riverside

Spatial patterns are a subfield of spatial ecology, and these patterns modify the temporal dynamics and stability properties of population densities at a range of spatial scales. Localized ecological interactions can generate striking large-scale spatial patterns in ecosystems through spatial self-organization. Possible mechanisms include oscillating consumer–resource interactions, localized disturbance–recovery processes, and scale-dependent feedback. However, in this paper, our main aim is to study the effect of tide on the pattern formation of a spatial plant-wrack model. We discuss the changes of the wavelength, wave speed, and the conditions of the spatial pattern formation, according to the dispersion relation formula. Both the mathematical analysis and numerical simulations reveal that the tide has great influence on the spatial pattern. More specifically, typical traveling spatial patterns can be obtained. Our obtained results are consistent with the previous observation that wracks exhibit traveling patterns, which is useful to help us better understand the dynamics of the real ecosystems.