Vegetation demographics in Earth System Models: A review of progress and priorities

Glob Chang Biol. 2018 Jan;24(1):35-54. doi: 10.1111/gcb.13910. Epub 2017 Oct 24.

Authors

Rosie A Fisher¹, Charles D Koven², William R L Anderegg³, Bradley O Christoffersen⁴, Michael C Dietze⁵, Caroline E Farrior⁶, Jennifer A Holm², George C Hurtt⁷, Ryan G Knox², Peter J Lawrence¹, Jeremy W Lichstein⁸, Marcos Longo⁹, Ashley M Matheny¹⁰, David Medvigy¹¹, Helene C Muller-Landau¹², Thomas L Powell², Shawn P Serbin¹³, Hisashi Sato¹⁴, Jacquelyn K Shuman¹, Benjamin Smith¹⁵, Anna T Trugman¹⁶, Toni Viskari¹², Hans Verbeeck¹⁷, Ensheng Weng¹⁸, Chonggang Xu⁴, Xiangtao Xu¹⁹, Tao Zhang⁸, Paul R Moorcroft²⁰

Affiliations

¹ National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA.
² Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.
³ Department of Biology, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.
⁴ Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, USA.
⁵ Department of Earth and Environment, Boston University, Boston, MA, USA.
⁶ Department of Integrative Biology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.
⁷ Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, USA.
⁸ Department of Biology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA.
⁹ Embrapa Agricultural Informatics, Campinas, Brazil.
¹⁰ Department of Geological Sciences, Jackson School of Geosciences, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.
¹¹ Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN, USA.
¹² Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panamá, Panamá.
¹³ Environmental and Climate Sciences Department, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Upton, NY, USA.
¹⁴ Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Yokohama, Japan.
¹⁵ Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystem Science, Lund University, Lund, Sweden.
¹⁶ Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
¹⁷ Department of Applied Ecology and Environmental Biology, Faculty of Bioscience Engineering, Ghent University, Gent, Belgium.
¹⁸ Center for Climate Systems Research, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA.
¹⁹ Department of Geosciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, USA.
²⁰ Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA.

PMID: 28921829
DOI: 10.1111/gcb.13910

Abstract

Numerous current efforts seek to improve the representation of ecosystem ecology and vegetation demographic processes within Earth System Models (ESMs). These developments are widely viewed as an important step in developing greater realism in predictions of future ecosystem states and fluxes. Increased realism, however, leads to increased model complexity, with new features raising a suite of ecological questions that require empirical constraints. Here, we review the developments that permit the representation of plant demographics in ESMs, and identify issues raised by these developments that highlight important gaps in ecological understanding. These issues inevitably translate into uncertainty in model projections but also allow models to be applied to new processes and questions concerning the dynamics of real-world ecosystems. We argue that stronger and more innovative connections to data, across the range of scales considered, are required to address these gaps in understanding. The development of first-generation land surface models as a unifying framework for ecophysiological understanding stimulated much research into plant physiological traits and gas exchange. Constraining predictions at ecologically relevant spatial and temporal scales will require a similar investment of effort and intensified inter-disciplinary communication.

Keywords: Earth System Model; carbon cycle; demographics; dynamic global vegetation models; ecosystem; vegetation.

Publication types

Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.
Review

MeSH terms

Earth, Planet*
Ecosystem*
Models, Biological*
Plants*
Population Dynamics
Uncertainty