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Peer-reviewedCC BY-NCScience Advances

Self-organized hummock-hollow patterns redistribute salinity stress in coastal meadows

  • Mingxuan Wu1,2,3
  • Jim van Belzen1,4
  • Archontoula Valsamidou1,5
  • Zhiyuan Zhao1
  • Gregory Fivash6
  • Tjeerd J. Bouma1,7
  • Quan-Xing Liu3
  • Max Rietkerk5
  • Pieter C. Roos8
  • Johan van de Koppel1,2
8 affiliations
  1. 1Department of Estuarine and Delta Systems, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, Yerseke, Netherlands.
  2. 2Conservation Ecology Group, Groningen Institute for Evolutionary Life Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands.
  3. 3School of Mathematical Sciences, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
  4. 4Wageningen Marine Research, Wageningen University & Research, Yerseke, Netherlands.
  5. 5Copernicus Institute of Sustainable Development, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands.
  6. 6Ecosphere Research Group, Department of Biology, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium.
  7. 7Department of Physical Geography, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands.
  8. 8Marine and Fluvial Systems, University of Twente, Enschede, Netherlands.
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Abstract

Self-organization theory predicts that ecosystem functioning and resilience can emerge from feedbacks that generate spatial patterns. These emergent properties have commonly been explained by local positive feedbacks that concentrate limiting resources within productive patches. Here, we identify a stress-redistribution feedback underlying self-organized hummock-hollow patterning. Through this feedback, salinity stress is partitioned across the patterned landscape, maintaining vegetated hummocks as low-salinity refugia alongside salt-rich hollows and thereby sustaining ecosystem functioning under climate-related salinization. A spatially explicit model predicts that rain-driven salt redistribution lowers hummocks salinity, increases productivity, and enhances resilience to a salt pulse. Field and remote-sensing data support these predictions: Patterned hummocks have lower soil salinity, higher biomass, greater reproductive output, and prolonged phenological activity compared with adjacent homogeneous vegetation. Together, these results reveal that spatial self-organization can support ecosystem functioning and resilience under climate stress through an underappreciated mechanism: the spatial redistribution of environmental stress. Restoring such self-organized patterning may offer a promising strategy for sustaining ecosystems in a changing climate.

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Cite

BibTeXRIS
BibTeX
@article{wu2026selforganized,
  title = {{Self-organized hummock-hollow patterns redistribute salinity stress in coastal meadows}},
  author = {Mingxuan Wu and Jim van Belzen and Archontoula Valsamidou and Zhiyuan Zhao and Gregory Fivash and Tjeerd J. Bouma and Quan-Xing Liu and Max Rietkerk and Pieter C. Roos and Johan van de Koppel},
  journal = {Science Advances},
  year = {2026},
  month = oct,
  doi = {10.1126/sciadv.aec0903},
  url = {https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aec0903},
  note = {CC BY-NC},
}
RIS
TY  - JOUR
TI  - Self-organized hummock-hollow patterns redistribute salinity stress in coastal meadows
AU  - Mingxuan Wu
AU  - Jim van Belzen
AU  - Archontoula Valsamidou
AU  - Zhiyuan Zhao
AU  - Gregory Fivash
AU  - Tjeerd J. Bouma
AU  - Quan-Xing Liu
AU  - Max Rietkerk
AU  - Pieter C. Roos
AU  - Johan van de Koppel
PY  - 2026
DA  - 2026/10/02
JO  - Science Advances
DO  - 10.1126/sciadv.aec0903
UR  - https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.aec0903
AB  - Self-organization theory predicts that ecosystem functioning and resilience can emerge from feedbacks that generate spatial patterns. These emergent properties have commonly been explained by local positive feedbacks that concentrate limiting resources within productive patches. Here, we identify a stress-redistribution feedback underlying self-organized hummock-hollow patterning. Through this feedback, salinity stress is partitioned across the patterned landscape, maintaining vegetated hummocks as low-salinity refugia alongside salt-rich hollows and thereby sustaining ecosystem functioning under climate-related salinization. A spatially explicit model predicts that rain-driven salt redistribution lowers hummocks salinity, increases productivity, and enhances resilience to a salt pulse. Field and remote-sensing data support these predictions: Patterned hummocks have lower soil salinity, higher biomass, greater reproductive output, and prolonged phenological activity compared with adjacent homogeneous vegetation. Together, these results reveal that spatial self-organization can support ecosystem functioning and resilience under climate stress through an underappreciated mechanism: the spatial redistribution of environmental stress. Restoring such self-organized patterning may offer a promising strategy for sustaining ecosystems in a changing climate.
SN  - 2375-2548
ER  -