Spatially explicit modelling of floodplain forest succession: interactions among flood inundation, forest successional processes, and other disturbances in the Upper Mississippi River floodplain, USA

Jager, Nathan R. De; Appledorn, Molly Van; Fox, Timothy J.; Rohweder, Jason J.; Guyon, Lyle J.; Meier, Andrew R.; Cosgriff, Robert J.; Vandermyde, Benjamin J.

doi:10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2019.05.002

Cited by 24 publications

(14 citation statements)

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“…For example, emergent marsh communities tend to be associated with longer‐duration flooding (De Jager et al, 2016) and are prevalent in the UIR and LIR where we observed more frequent and prolonged inundation (De Jager et al, 2018); fewer inundation events observed in the ORR may limit the extent of emergent marshes in lower portions of the UMRS. Recent efforts to model floodplain forest succession in the UMRS have supported the notion that broad‐scale variability in inundation dynamics can have important consequences for the distribution and abundance of tree species (De Jager et al, 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Efforts to link physical and ecological processes in ways that go beyond simple pattern correlations are also useful for informing restoration and management activities in complex, dynamic ecosystems such as floodplains, which are notoriously challenging to manage (Haynes, 2004; Stanturf et al, 2001; Vaughan et al, 2009). Annual maps of GS Duration, described here, have been used by De Jager et al (2019) to model interactions among inundation dynamics, forest stand dynamics, and potential disturbances (e.g., invasive insect pests) in the UMRS over long time scales with the goal of giving context to broad‐scale forest management decisions. In other systems, spatially explicit summaries of inundation dynamics have been used to predict how water management actions may affect cottonwood seedling recruitment (Benjankar et al, 2014; Morrison & Stone, 2014), fish movement through floodplains (Meitzen et al, 2018), and vegetation‐succession trends (Benjankar et al, 2012).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Upper Mississippi River System (UMRS) has one of the largest and most geomorphically complex floodplains in the continental United States and is a high conservation and restoration priority for several stakeholders (De Jager et al, 2018; Guyon, Deutsch, Lundh, & Urich, 2012). Management and restoration actions in this system are currently hampered by a lack of basic information regarding spatial and temporal patterns of inundation, despite a growing recognition of the role inundation plays in vegetation (De Jager, 2012; De Jager et al, 2019; De Jager, Cogger, & Thomsen, 2013; Yin, Wu, Bartell, & Cosgriff, 2009) and soil dynamics (De Jager, Swanson, Strauss, Thomsen, & Yin, 2015; Kreiling, De Jager, Swanson, Strauss, & Thomsen, 2015) at local to landscape scales. System‐wide characterizations of flooding dynamics across the UMRS, particularly as they may relate to ecological patterns and processes, are lacking (De Jager et al, 2018; Theiling et al, 2000).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Quantifying and mapping inundation regimes within a large river‐floodplain ecosystem for ecological and management applications

Appledorn

Jager

Rohweder

2020

River Research & Apps

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Spatial information on the distribution of ecosystem patterns and processes can be a critical component of designing and implementing effective management programs in river‐floodplain ecosystems. For example, translating how flood pulses detected within a stream gauge record are spatially manifested across a river‐valley bottom can be used to evaluate whether the current distribution of physical conditions has the potential to support priority habitats or if intervention is needed to meet desired goals. The size and complexity of large river‐floodplain systems can make mapping inundation dynamics a challenging task. We used a geospatial model to simulate 40 years (1972–2011) of daily surface‐water inundation depths for 11,331 km2 of the Upper Mississippi River System floodplain. We identified discrete inundation events at each 4‐m × 4‐m pixel in the model as sequential days of submergence. We then quantified and mapped four aspects of inundation regime – event frequency, duration, magnitude, and timing – for each pixel. The spatial distribution of inundation regime attributes varied within and among multiple levels of river organization, including navigation pools and geomorphic reaches, but only event timing exhibited a strong down‐river trend. Non‐linear relations among inundation attributes and their geospatial distributions likely reflect complex interactions among topographic, hydrologic, and anthropogenic constraints on flooding dynamics. Together, our results reveal spatial gradients in inundation dynamics not captured by hydrologic data alone. Characterizing such diversity in inundation dynamics is important for testing hypotheses about ecological processes, developing models of ecosystem functions, and informing management actions.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Quantifying and mapping inundation regimes within a large river‐floodplain ecosystem for ecological and management applications

Appledorn

Jager

Rohweder

2020

River Research & Apps

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“…Research by Saksa et al (2020a,b) coupled an ecohydrology model with a stand growth and yield model (for vegetation dynamics) and a fire behavior model to evaluate the integrated effects of fuel treatment patterns on fire risk and hydrologic outputs from small watersheds of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in the western United States. A planar surface model was used to define the flood disturbance regime for an FLM application to a Mississippi floodplain system in the central United States (DeJager et al, 2019). The combination of forest cover, disturbances, and impervious surface outputs from a coupled land cover change and FLM model system were used to project flood risk via a simple hydrologic model (Thompson et al, 2016).…”

Section: Coupled Modelsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding and Modeling Forest Disturbance Interactions at the Landscape Level

Sturtevant

Fortin

2021

Front. Ecol. Evol.

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Disturbances, both natural and anthropogenic, affect the configuration, composition, and function of forested ecosystems. Complex system behaviors emerge from the interactions between disturbance regimes, the vegetation response to those disturbances, and their interplay with multiple drivers (climate, topography, land use, etc.) across spatial and temporal scales. Here, we summarize conceptual advances and empirical approaches to disturbance interaction investigation, and used those insights to evaluate and categorize 146 landscape modeling studies emerging from a systematic review of the literature published since 2010. Recent conceptual advances include formal disaggregation of disturbances into their constituent components, embedding disturbance processes into system dynamics, and clarifying terminology for interaction factors, types, and ecosystem responses. Empirical studies investigating disturbance interactions now span a wide range of approaches, including (most recently) advanced statistical methods applied to an expanding set of spatial and temporal datasets. Concurrent development in spatially-explicit landscape models, informed by these empirical insights, integrate the interactions among natural and anthropogenic disturbances by coupling these processes to account for disturbance stochasticity, disturbance within and across scales, and non-linear landscape responses to climate change. Still, trade-offs between model elegance and complexity remain. We developed an index for the degree of process integration (i.e., balance of static vs. dynamic components) within a given disturbance agent and applied it to the studies from our systematic review. Contemporary model applications in this line of research have applied a wide range process integration, depending on the specific question, but also limited in part by data and knowledge. Non-linear “threshold” behavior and cross-scaled interactions remain a frontier in temperate, boreal, and alpine regions of North America and Europe, while even simplistic studies are lacking from other regions of the globe (e.g., subtropical and tropical biomes). Understanding and planning for uncertainty in system behavior—including disturbance interactions—is paramount at a time of accelerated anthropogenic change. While progress in landscape modeling studies in this area is evident, work remains to increase model transparency and confidence, especially for understudied regions and processes. Moving forward, a multi-dimensional approach is recommended to address the uncertainties of complex human-ecological dynamics.

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“…However, FLMs tend to have weak or indirect links between climate and growth, often using slowly changing climate averages that fail to account for the importance of extreme events in structuring forests (Gustafson, 2013). Virtually all FLMs are unable to dynamically link climate to changes in hydrology, especially in hydrologic systems where soil waterlogging is possible, although a couple examples of loosely coupling a hydrology model with an FLM have recently been described (De Jager et al, 2019;Speich et al, 2019).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Simulating Growth and Competition on Wet and Waterlogged Soils in a Forest Landscape Model

et al. 2020

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Changes in CO2 concentration and climate are likely to alter disturbance regimes and competitive outcomes among tree species, which ultimately can result in shifts of species and biome boundaries. Such changes are already evident in high latitude forests, where waterlogged soils produced by topography, surficial geology, and permafrost are an important driver of forest dynamics. Predicting such effects under the novel conditions of the future requires models with direct and mechanistic links of abiotic drivers to growth and competition. We enhanced such a forest landscape model (PnET-Succession in LANDIS-II) to allow simulation of waterlogged soils and their effects on tree growth and competition. We formally tested how these modifications alter water balance on wetland and permafrost sites, and their effect on tree growth and competition. We applied the model to evaluate its promise for mechanistically simulating species range expansion and contraction under climate change across a latitudinal gradient in Siberian Russia. We found that higher emissions scenarios permitted range expansions that were quicker and allowed a greater diversity of invading species, especially at the highest latitudes, and that disturbance hastened range shifts by overcoming the natural inertia of established ecological communities. The primary driver of range advances to the north was altered hydrology related to thawing permafrost, followed by temperature effects on growth. Range contractions from the south (extirpations) were slower and less tied to emissions or latitude, and were driven by inability to compete with invaders, or disturbance. An important non-intuitive result was that some extant species were killed off by extreme cold events projected under climate change as greater weather extremes occurred over the next 30 years, and this had important effects on subsequent successional trajectories. The mechanistic linkages between climate and soil water dynamics in this forest landscape model produced tight links between climate inputs, physiology of vegetation, and soils at a monthly time step. The updated modeling system can produce high quality projections of climate impacts on forest species range shifts by accounting for the interacting effects of CO2 concentration, climate (including longer growing seasons), seed dispersal, disturbance, and soil hydrologic properties.

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Spatially explicit modelling of floodplain forest succession: interactions among flood inundation, forest successional processes, and other disturbances in the Upper Mississippi River floodplain, USA

Cited by 24 publications

References 50 publications

Quantifying and mapping inundation regimes within a large river‐floodplain ecosystem for ecological and management applications

Quantifying and mapping inundation regimes within a large river‐floodplain ecosystem for ecological and management applications

Understanding and Modeling Forest Disturbance Interactions at the Landscape Level

Simulating Growth and Competition on Wet and Waterlogged Soils in a Forest Landscape Model

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