Nonlocal coupling can prevent the collapse of spatiotemporal chaos.

Spatiotemporal chaos on a regular ring network of excitable Gray-Scott dynamical elements is transient. We find that the addition of very few nonlocal network connections drastically changes the average lifetime of spatiotemporal chaos. In the presence of a single shortcut local interface formation delays the collapse of spatiotemporal chaos. This competes with a reduced average characteristic path length that advances the collapse process. Two added shortcuts can prevent the collapse of spatiotemporal chaos by causing an asymptotic local collapse.