The impact of interannual rainfall variability on the spatial and temporal patterns of vegetation in a water-limited ecosystem

A hydrologically driven hierarchical competition–colonization model is applied in an spatially explicit manner to investigate the effect of temporal (e.g., interannual rainfall fluctuations) and spatial (e.g., local dispersal) processes on vegetation patterns. Results suggest that interannual rainfall fluctuations extend the range of dispersal distances that result in spatial organization (e.g., clustering, self-similarity) and proportional abundances of vegetation different from those expected for the globally dispersing case.