Before revision:  It has been hypothesized that patterns could emerge from a water-mediated scale-dependent feedback (SDF), whereby interactions favoring plant growth dominate at short distances while growth-inhibitory interactions dominate in the long-range. As precipitation declines, this framework predicts a sequential change from gapped to labyrinthine to spotted spatial patterns.
After revision:  It has been hypothesized that patterns could emerge from a water-mediated scale-dependent feedback (SDF), whereby interactions favoring plant growth dominate at short distances while growth-inhibitory interactions dominate in the long range.