Dynamics Seminar by Eric Siero (Wageningen) on February 14

On Wednesday 14th of February at 4pm in the MathLab, Eric Siero (Wageningen) will give an Amsterdam Dynamics seminar.

The talk will take place in the Maryam seminar room (9A-46) and everyone is welcome to join for drinks at Bar Boele after the talk.

Title: Busse balloon Barbapapa

Abstract: Spatial self-organisation arises in many contexts. A classical example is Rayleigh-Bénard convection: when the temperature between a warmed bottom plate and a cooler top plate grows beyond a certain threshold, convection cells form. The heat transport increases significantly due to the self-organised flow. Busse balloons are a (graphical) representation of these patterns.

A prominent example in ecology is dryland vegetation. If yearly precipitation is below some critical value, patterns emerge with a wavelength of tens of meters. These patterns have paradoxically been interpreted as both 1) early-warning signals of complete desertification and 2) a way of the ecosystem to adapt to drought. In this talk, we will manipulate a Klausmeier-type reaction-diffusion model and see how the shape of the corresponding Busse balloon changes. The shape of the Busse balloon is then used to infer ecosystem response to increased drought.