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On the need to consider wood formation processes in global vegetation models and a suggested approach

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Friend, Andrew David 
Eckes-Shephard, Annemarie 
Fonti, Patrick 
Rademacher, Tim Tito 
Rathgeber, Cyrille 

Abstract

Dynamic global vegetation models are key tools for interpreting and forecasting the responses of terrestrial ecosystems to climatic variation and other drivers. They estimate plant growth as the outcome of the supply of carbon through photosynthesis. However, growth is itself under direct control, and not simply controlled by the amount of available carbon. Therefore predictions by current photosynthesis driven models of large increases in future vegetation biomass due to increasing concentrations of atmospheric CO2 may be significant over-estimations. We describe how current understanding of wood formation can be used to reformulate global vegetation models, with potentially major implications for their behaviour.

Description

Keywords

Dynamic global vegetation model, Xylogenesis, Carbon, Source, Sink

Journal Title

Annals of Forest Science

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

1297-966X
1297-966X

Volume Title

Publisher

Springer Verlag

Rights

All rights reserved
Sponsorship
Natural Environment Research Council (NE/P011462/1)