%AHébert‐Dufresne, Laurent [Department of Computer Science and Vermont Complex Systems Center University of Vermont Burlington VT 05405 USA, Santa Fe Institute 1399 Hyde Park Road Santa Fe NM 87501 USA]%AHébert-Dufresne, Laurent [Department of Computer Science and Vermont Complex Systems Center; University of Vermont; Burlington VT 05405 USA; Santa Fe Institute; 1399 Hyde Park Road Santa Fe NM 87501 USA]%APellegrini, Adam [Department of Earth System Science Stanford University Stanford CA 94305 USA, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Princeton University Princeton NJ 08544 USA]%APellegrini, Adam [Department of Earth System Science; Stanford University; Stanford CA 94305 USA; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Princeton University; Princeton NJ 08544 USA]%ABhat, Uttam [Santa Fe Institute 1399 Hyde Park Road Santa Fe NM 87501 USA, Department of Physics Boston University Boston MA 02215 USA, School of Natural Sciences University of California, Merced Merced CA 95343 USA]%ABhat, Uttam [Santa Fe Institute; 1399 Hyde Park Road Santa Fe NM 87501 USA; Department of Physics; Boston University; Boston MA 02215 USA; School of Natural Sciences; University of California, Merced; Merced CA 95343 USA]%ARedner, Sidney [Santa Fe Institute 1399 Hyde Park Road Santa Fe NM 87501 USA]%ARedner, Sidney [Santa Fe Institute; 1399 Hyde Park Road Santa Fe NM 87501 USA]%APacala, Stephen [Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Princeton University Princeton NJ 08544 USA]%APacala, Stephen [Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology; Princeton University; Princeton NJ 08544 USA]%ABerdahl, Andrew [Santa Fe Institute 1399 Hyde Park Road Santa Fe NM 87501 USA, School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences University of Washington Seattle WA 98195 USA]%ABerdahl, Andrew [Santa Fe Institute; 1399 Hyde Park Road Santa Fe NM 87501 USA; School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences; University of Washington; Seattle WA 98195 USA]%ACoulson, ed., Tim%ACoulson, ed., Tim%BJournal Name: Ecology Letters; Journal Volume: 21; Journal Issue: 6; Related Information: CHORUS Timestamp: 2023-09-23 14:59:23 %D2018%IWiley-Blackwell %JJournal Name: Ecology Letters; Journal Volume: 21; Journal Issue: 6; Related Information: CHORUS Timestamp: 2023-09-23 14:59:23 %K %MOSTI ID: 10069462 %PMedium: X %TEdge fires drive the shape and stability of tropical forests %XAbstract

In tropical regions, fires propagate readily in grasslands but typically consume only edges of forest patches. Thus, forest patches grow due to tree propagation and shrink by fires in surrounding grasslands. The interplay between these competing edge effects is unknown, but critical in determining the shape and stability of individual forest patches, as well the landscape‐level spatial distribution and stability of forests. We analyze high‐resolution remote‐sensing data from protected Brazilian Cerrado areas and find that forest shapes obey a robust perimeter–area scaling relation across climatic zones. We explain this scaling by introducing a heterogeneous fire propagation model of tropical forest‐grassland ecotones. Deviations from this perimeter–area relation determine the stability of individual forest patches. At a larger scale, our model predicts that the relative rates of tree growth due to propagative expansion and long‐distance seed dispersal determine whether collapse of regional‐scale tree cover is continuous or discontinuous as fire frequency changes.

%0Journal Article