Modeling forest landscapes in a changing climate: theory and application

He, Hong S.; Gustafson, Eric J.; Lischke, Heike

doi:10.1007/s10980-017-0529-4

Cited by 18 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Assessing the long-term impacts of forest management is challenging, because it involves processes and factors that operate at multiple spatial scales across a long time span. First, forest composition and structure are affected by processes operating at multiple scales [25][26][27]. Species establishment, growth, mortality, and competition affect forest dynamics at the site scale.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-Term Impacts of China’s New Commercial Harvest Exclusion Policy on Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity in the Temperate Forests of Northeast China

Liang

et al. 2018

Sustainability

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Temperate forests in Northeast China have been severely exploited by timber harvesting in the last century. To reverse this trend, China implemented the Classified Forest Management policy in the Natural Forest Conservation Program in 1998 to protect forests from excessive harvesting. However, the policy was unable to meet the 2020 commitment of increasing growing stock (set in the Kyoto Protocol) because of high-intensity harvesting. Accordingly, China banned all commercial harvesting in Northeast China in 2014. In this study, we investigated the long-term impacts of the no commercial harvest (NCH) policy on ecosystem services and biodiversity using a forest landscape model, LANDIS PRO 7.0, in the temperate forests of the Small Khingan Mountains, Northeast China. We designed three management scenarios: The H scenario (the Classified Forest Management policy used in the past), the NCH scenario (the current Commercial Harvest Exclusion policy), and the LT scenario (mitigation management, i.e., light thinning). We compared total aboveground forest biomass, biomass by tree species, abundance of old-growth forests, and diversity of tree species and age class in three scenarios from 2010 to 2100. We found that compared with the H scenario, the NCH scenario increased aboveground forest biomass, abundance of old-growth forests, and biomass of most timber species over time; however, it decreased the biomass of rare and protected tree species and biodiversity. We found that the LT scenario increased the biomass of rare and protected tree species and biodiversity in comparison with the NCH scenario, while it maintained aboveground forest biomass and abundance of old-growth forests at a high level (slightly less than the NCH scenario). We concluded there was trade-off between carbon storage and biodiversity. We also concluded that light thinning treatment was able to regulate the trade-off and alleviate the negative effects associated with the NCH policy. Our results highlighted limitations of the NCH policy and provided new insights into sustainable forest management and the interdependence between human society and the forest ecosystem.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-Term Impacts of China’s New Commercial Harvest Exclusion Policy on Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity in the Temperate Forests of Northeast China

Liang

et al. 2018

Sustainability

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“…These variables are used to define the ecological processes taking place at cell level (e.g., growth, mortality among others) and at landscape level (e.g., seed dispersal, fire spread). For comprehensive reviews on the development, structure and recent applications of FLMs see Shifley et al (2017); Keane et al (2015), and He et al (2017).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Step-by-Step Guide to Initialize and Calibrate Landscape Models: A Case Study in the Mediterranean Mountains

et al. 2021

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The use of spatially interactive forest landscape models has increased in recent years. These models are valuable tools to assess our knowledge about the functioning and provisioning of ecosystems as well as essential allies when predicting future changes. However, developing the necessary inputs and preparing them for research studies require substantial initial investments in terms of time. Although model initialization and calibration often take the largest amount of modelers’ efforts, such processes are rarely reported thoroughly in application studies. Our study documents the process of calibrating and setting up an ecophysiologically based forest landscape model (LANDIS-II with PnET-Succession) in a biogeographical region where such a model has never been applied to date (southwestern Mediterranean mountains in Europe). We describe the methodological process necessary to produce the required spatial inputs expressing initial vegetation and site conditions. We test model behaviour on single-cell simulations and calibrate species parameters using local biomass estimations and literature information. Finally, we test how different initialization data—with and without shrub communities—influence the simulation of forest dynamics by applying the calibrated model at landscape level. Combination of plot-level data with vegetation maps allowed us to generate a detailed map of initial tree and shrub communities. Single-cell simulations revealed that the model was able to reproduce realistic biomass estimates and competitive effects for different forest types included in the landscape, as well as plausible monthly growth patterns of species growing in Mediterranean mountains. Our results highlight the importance of considering shrub communities in forest landscape models, as they influence the temporal dynamics of tree species. Besides, our results show that, in the absence of natural disturbances, harvesting or climate change, landscape-level simulations projected a general increase of biomass of several species over the next decades but with distinct spatio-temporal patterns due to competitive effects and landscape heterogeneity. Providing a step-by-step workflow to initialize and calibrate a forest landscape model, our study encourages new users to use such tools in forestry and climate change applications. Thus, we advocate for documenting initialization processes in a transparent and reproducible manner in forest landscape modelling.

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“…Ecological models provide a unique scientific approach for long-term prediction of the effects of fire and harvest on forest carbon stocks. The simulation results of ecological models can illustrate general trends in forest carbon stocks and provide insight into how fire and harvest affect forest dynamics in the future (He et al 2011(He et al , 2017Shifley et al 2006). However, validation of simulation results requires long-term spatial and temporal field data, which are not readily available.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term effects of fire and harvest on carbon stocks of boreal forests in northeastern China

Huang

Liang

et al. 2018

Annals of Forest Science

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& Key message Fire, harvest, and their spatial interactions are likely to affect boreal forest carbon stocks. Repeated disturbances associated with short fire return intervals and harvest rotations resulted in landscapes with a higher proportion of young stands that store less carbon than mature stands. & Context Boreal forests represent about one third of forest area and one third of forest carbon stocks on the Earth. Carbon stocks of boreal forests are sensitive to climate change, natural disturbances, and human activities. & Aims The objectives of this study were to evaluate the effects of fire, harvest, and their spatial interactions on boreal forest carbon stocks of northeastern China. & Methods We used a coupled forest landscape model (LANDIS PRO) and a forest ecosystem model (LINKAGES) framework to simulate the landscape-level effects of fire, harvest, and their spatial interactions over 150 years. & Results Our simulation suggested that aboveground carbon and soil organic carbon are significantly reduced by fire and harvest over the whole simulation period. The long-term effects of fire and harvest on carbon stocks were greater than the short-term effects. The combined effects of fire and harvest on carbon stocks are less than the sum of the separate effects of fire and harvest. The response of carbon stocks was impacted by the spatial variability of fire and harvest regimes. & Conclusion These results emphasize that the spatial interactions of fire and harvest play an important role in regulating boreal forest carbon stocks.

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Modeling forest landscapes in a changing climate: theory and application

Cited by 18 publications

References 41 publications

Long-Term Impacts of China’s New Commercial Harvest Exclusion Policy on Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity in the Temperate Forests of Northeast China

Long-Term Impacts of China’s New Commercial Harvest Exclusion Policy on Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity in the Temperate Forests of Northeast China

A Step-by-Step Guide to Initialize and Calibrate Landscape Models: A Case Study in the Mediterranean Mountains

Long-term effects of fire and harvest on carbon stocks of boreal forests in northeastern China

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