research
The Enrico Fermi Research Center - CREF promotes original and high-impact lines of research, based on physical methods, but with a strong interdisciplinary character and in relation to the main problems of the modern knowledge society.
People
third mission
The CREF was born with a dual soul: a research centre and a historical museum. Its aim is to preserve and disseminate the memory of Enrico Fermi and to promote the dissemination and communication of scientific culture.
news
Publications, news, press review. For interviews, filming, and press contacts, please write to comunicazione@cref.it
NEWS
Uncovering Networks in Rainforest Plants
The resilience of an ecosystem to environmental and human-induced change may depend on how the system’s plants are arranged. Do they form patchy clumps or networks extending over the whole terrain? A team of researchers in Italy, led by Pablo Villegas, has now shown that, in a tropical rainforest in Panama, the dominant plant species are arranged in so-called scale-free distributions containing clusters with a wide range of sizes. This distribution is characteristic of a system close to a critical state, in which the effects of perturbations can be rapidly felt throughout the system. The observations could help to guide strategies for protecting rainforests and other ecosystems from collapse in the face of environmental change.
On Physics a Focus on:
Evidence of scale-free clusters of vegetation in tropical rainforests