Before revision:  Although these alternative hypotheses lead to visually indistinguishable spatial distributions of plants, they predict different ecosystem-level consequences for the patterns, thus limiting their potential use as ecosystem-state indicators .
After revision:  Although these alternative hypotheses lead to visually indistinguishable patterns they predict very different desertification dynamics following the spotted pattern. Moreover, vegetation interaction with other ecosystem components can introduce additional spatio-temporal scales that reshape both the patterns and the desertification dynamics .