Self-organized sulfide-driven traveling pulses shape seagrass meadows

Traveling pulses of vegetation are able to form strikingly complex seascapes as Dani and his former group have shown in Posidonia oceanica meadows. They prove that these spatiotemporal structures arise due to the excitable dynamics mediated by the accumulation of sulfides in the sediment, which are toxic to the plants, on the basis of mathematical modeling, field measurements, and historical aerial images. Great work Dani! Read more here in their PNAS paper.