Estimation of productivity in pine and oak forests in northern Portugal using Biome-BGC

Abstract

Studies about the productivity of forest ecosystems help to quantify sequestered carbon and provide data that are used in forest management. Forests in northern Portugal are an important economic resource, but their productivity in scenarios of future climate change is not yet well understood. The objectives of this study were to evaluate and compare simulated net primary production (NPP) and NPP based on measured data of two tree species located in the Vila Real district forests, pine (Pinus pinaster Aiton) and oak (Quercus pyrenaica Willd.) and assess their simulated NPP in diverse climate conditions, including future climate scenarios and increasing atmospheric CO 2 concentrations. An ecosystem process model, Biome-BGC, which simulates carbon, nitrogen and water cycles of forest ecosystems close to equilibrium conditions, was used to examine the importance of site and ecophysiological factors on the productivity of these forests. Climate change scenarios and increased CO 2 concentrations were tested to explore potential responses of the studied species. The model provided good estimates of NPP. There was a strong correlation between the simulated and measured NPP values in the pine (15) and oak (15) stands. The NPP of these forests are predicted to increase in the future with a CO 2 increase whereas in a climate with higher temperature and lower soil moisture, the NPP will decrease. These results confirm that precipitation is a very important climate variable to growth and productivity in the Mediterranean forest ecosystems. This study also demonstrated the ability of Biome-BGC to accurately simulate forest ecosystems behaviour and encourages the application of model simulations in Portugal.

Simulating Water-Use Efficiency of Piceacrassi folia Forest under Representative Concentration Pathway Scenarios in the Qilian Mountains of Northwest China

“…Combining the validations in previous and current studies, this study suggested that the Biome-BGC model was suitable for estimating annual NPP and transpiration of P. crassifolia forest under current climate and CO 2 concentration conditions. Thus, the validation exercise provided a level of confidence in the model capability to project the impacts of climate change and changing atmospheric CO 2 concentrations on NPP and transpiration of P. crassifolia forest at each site under future climatic conditions and CO 2 concentration, as suggested by Nunes et al [8] and Su et al [7].…”

“…Moreover, utilization of the model for predicting flux changes under future climate and atmospheric CO 2 concentration scenarios has been described [7,8]. First, model outputs under current climate and atmospheric CO 2 concentration conditions should be validated using the field-based data.…”

“…First, model outputs under current climate and atmospheric CO 2 concentration conditions should be validated using the field-based data. Second, if simulated values are close to field-based measurements, then the model can be used to simulate this flux under future climate and atmospheric CO 2 concentration scenarios through climate change and CO 2 control options in the initialization file of the model [7,8].…”

“…Although many studies have accounted for the effects of climate change on forest ecosystems, they have generally focused on responses of forest net primary production [5,[7][8][9]. Water-use efficiency efficiency (WUE), net primary productivity (NPP) to transpiration ratio [10,11], has been identified as an effective integral trait for assessing ecosystem response to climate change [12].…”

The effect of climate on the net primary productivity (NPP) of Pinus koraiensis in the Changbai Mountains over the past 50 years

“…A few cases have not shown any trends or have shown a decrease in productivity with extreme growth limitations (Lawrence et al 2005;Lucht et al 2002). Nunes et al (2015) stated that the NPP of temperate Mediterranean forests (Pinus pinaster Aiton and Quercus pyrenaica Willd. forests) in northern Portugal will increase with a CO 2 increase, whereas higher temperatures and lower soil moisture will result in an NPP decrease in the future.…”