%0 Journal Article
%9 ACL : Articles dans des revues avec comité de lecture répertoriées par l'AERES
%A Yatat, V.
%A Couteron, Pierre
%A Tewa, J. J.
%A Bowong, S.
%A Dumont, Y.
%T An impulsive modelling framework of fire occurrence in a size-structured model of tree-grass interactions for savanna ecosystems
%D 2017
%L fdi:010069518
%G ENG
%J Journal of Mathematical Biology
%@ 0303-6812
%K Savanna ; Fire ; Asymmetric competition ; Impulsive differential equation ; Qualitative analysis ; Nonstandard finite difference scheme
%M ISI:000399404200004
%N 6
%P 1425-1482
%R 10.1007/s00285-016-1060-y
%U https://www.documentation.ird.fr/hor/fdi:010069518
%> https://www.documentation.ird.fr/intranet/publi/2017/05/010069518.pdf
%V 74
%W Horizon (IRD)
%X Fires and mean annual rainfall are major factors that regulate woody and grassy biomasses in savanna ecosystems. Within the savanna biome, conditions of long-lasting coexistence of trees and grasses have been often studied using continuous-time modelling of tree-grass competition. In these studies, fire is a time-continuous forcing while the relationship between woody plant size and fire-sensitivity is not systematically considered. In this paper, we propose a new mathematical framework to model tree-grass interactions that takes into account both the impulsive nature of fire occurrence and size-dependent fire sensitivity (via two classes of woody plants). We carry out a qualitative analysis that highlights ecological thresholds and bifurcation parameters that shape the dynamics of the savanna-like systems within the main ecological zones. Through a qualitative analysis, we show that the impulsive modelling of fire occurrences leads to more diverse behaviors including cases of grassland, savanna and forest tristability and a more realistic array of solutions than the analogous time-continuous fire models. Numerical simulations are carried out with respect to the three main ecological contexts (moist, mesic, semi-arid) to illustrate the theoretical results and to support a discussion about the bifurcation parameters and the advantages of the model.
%$ 082 ; 076 ; 020