Policy and market forces delay real estate price declines on the US coast.

Despite increasing risks from sea-level rise (SLR) and storms, US coastal communities continue to attract relatively high-income residents, and coastal property values continue to rise. To understand this seeming paradox and explore policy responses, we develop the Coastal Home Ownership Model (C-HOM) and analyze the long-term evolution of coastal real estate markets. C-HOM incorporates changing physical attributes of the coast, economic values of these attributes, and dynamic risks associated with storms and flooding.

Evidence of Biological Self-Organization in Spatial Patterns of a Common Tropical Alga.

AbstractTropical reef communities contain spatial patterns at multiple scales, observable from microscope and satellite alike. Many of the smaller-scale patterns are generated physiologically (e.g.

Variations in stability revealed by temporal asymmetries in contraction of phase space flow.

Empirical diagnosis of stability has received considerable attention, often focused on variance metrics for early warning signals of abrupt system change or delicate techniques measuring Lyapunov spectra. The theoretical foundation for the popular early warning signal approach has been limited to relatively simple system changes such as bifurcating fixed points where variability is extrinsic to the steady state. We offer a novel measurement of stability that applies in wide ranging systems that contain variability in both internal steady state dynamics and in response to external perturbations.

Modelling the linkage between coral assemblage structure and pattern of environmental forcing.

Geographical comparisons suggest that coral reef communities can vary as a function of their environmental context, differing not just in terms of total coral cover but also in terms of relative abundance (or coverage) of coral taxa. While much work has considered how shifts in benthic reef dynamics can shift dominance of stony corals relative to algal and other benthic competitors, the relative performance of coral types under differing patterns of environmental disturbance has received less attention. We construct an empirically-grounded numerical model to simulate coral assemblage dynamics under a spectrum of disturbance regimes, contrasting hydrodynamic disturbances (which cause morphology-specific, whole-colony mortality) with disturbances that cause mortality independently of colony morphology.

Insights into coral reef benthic dynamics from nonlinear spatial forecasting.

Nonlinear time-series forecasting, or empirical dynamic modelling, has been used extensively in the past two decades as a tool for distinguishing between random temporal behaviour and nonlinear deterministic dynamics. Previous authors have extended nonlinear time-series forecasting to continuous spatial data. Here, we adjust spatial forecasting to handle discrete data and apply the technique to explore the ubiquity of nonlinear determinism in irregular spatial configurations of coral and algal taxa from Palmyra Atoll, a relatively pristine reef in the central Pacific Ocean.

Influence of aggregation on benthic coral reef spatio-temporal dynamics.

Spatial patterning of coral reef sessile benthic organisms can constrain competitive and demographic rates, with implications for dynamics over a range of time scales. However, techniques for quantifying and analysing reefscape behaviour, particularly at short to intermediate time scales (weeks to decades), are lacking. An analysis of the dynamics of coral reefscapes simulated with a lattice model shows consistent trends that can be categorized into four stages: a repelling stage that moves rapidly away from an unstable initial condition, a transient stage where spatial rearrangements bring key competitors into contact, an attracting stage where the reefscape decays to a steady-state attractor, and an attractor stage.

Herbivore space use influences coral reef recovery.

Herbivores play an important role in marine communities. On coral reefs, the diversity and unique feeding behaviours found within this functional group can have a comparably diverse set of impacts in structuring the benthic community. Here, using a spatially explicit model of herbivore foraging, we explore how the spatial pattern of grazing behaviours impacts the recovery of a reef ecosystem, considering movements at two temporal scales-short term (e.

Climate adaptation and policy-induced inflation of coastal property value.

Human population density in the coastal zone and potential impacts of climate change underscore a growing conflict between coastal development and an encroaching shoreline. Rising sea-levels and increased storminess threaten to accelerate coastal erosion, while growing demand for coastal real estate encourages more spending to hold back the sea in spite of the shrinking federal budget for beach nourishment. As climatic drivers and federal policies for beach nourishment change, the evolution of coastline mitigation and property values is uncertain.

Understanding human-landscape interactions in the "Anthropocene".

This article summarizes the primary outcomes of an interdisciplinary workshop in 2010, sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation, focused on developing key questions and integrative themes for advancing the science of human-landscape systems.

Spatial dynamics of benthic competition on coral reefs.

The community structure of sedentary organisms is largely controlled by the outcome of direct competition for space. Understanding factors defining competitive outcomes among neighbors is thus critical for predicting large-scale changes, such as transitions to alternate states within coral reefs. Using a spatially explicit model, we explored the importance of variation in two spatial properties in benthic dynamics on coral reefs: (1) patterns of herbivory are spatially distinct between fishes and sea urchins and (2) there is wide variation in the areal extent into which different coral species can expand.