| dc.description | This Matlab code simulates the spatiotemporal dynamics of a desert shrub population. The development of the code was motivated by the need to link rain-splash induced mound building at the shrub scale with the unfolding 'biological play' occurring on a hillside. The code therefore was designed for subsequent coupling with physics based models of sediment transport. Its spatial scale (~10s-100s m) spans many individual shrubs (~10-100 cm) and its temporal scale (~100s-1000s years) spans multiple shrub lifetimes (~10s-100s years). In addition to featuring a strong biophysical foundation (e.g., basic aspects of desert soil-water hydrology and population ecology such as shrub recruitment, growth, and mortality), the code mimics well-documented aspects of how desert shrub populations respond to changes in precipitation (e.g., productivity decreases with increasingly arid conditions and areal density declines during prolonged periods of drought). For supporting information about the conceptual and mathematical framework of the model as well as a description of its behaviors and potential use cases, please see Worman, 2010 and Worman and Furbish (2018). | en_US |
