Towards a More Realistic Simulation of Plant Species with a Dynamic Vegetation Model Using Field-Measured Traits: The Atlas Cedar, a Case Study

Abstract

Improving the model-based predictions of plant species under a projected climate is essential to better conserve our biodiversity. However, the mechanistic link between climatic variation and plant response at the species level remains relatively poorly understood and not accurately developed in Dynamic Vegetation Models (DVMs). We investigated the acclimation to climate of Cedrus atlantica (Atlas cedar), an endemic endangered species from northwestern African mountains, in order to improve the ability of a DVM to simulate tree growth under climatic gradients. Our results showed that the specific leaf area, leaf C:N and sapwood C:N vary across the range of the species in relation to climate. Using the model parameterized with the three traits varying with climate could improve the simulated local net primary productivity (NPP) when compared to the model parameterized with fixed traits. Quantifying the influence of climate on traits and including these variations in DVMs could help to better anticipate the consequences of climate change on species dynamics and distributions. Additionally, the simulation with computed traits showed dramatic drops in NPP over the course of the 21st century. This finding is in line with other studies suggesting the decline in the species in the Rif Mountains, owing to increasing water stress.

CoFee-L: A model of animal displacement in large groups combining Cohesion maintenance, Feeding area search and transient Leadership.

“…Ultimately, we could predict the shift and the turnover of zoochoric tropical trees species with a dynamic vegetation model (DVM, e.g. [7,52]), under future climate hypotheses. A DVM is able to compute gross photosynthesis and respiration and to allocate fixed carbon to the short-lived and the perennial parts of the plants it simulates, from input data such as monthly climate and atmospheric CO2 concentration and traits describing the plant species, such as the specific leaf area and the nitrogen concentration.…”

CoFee-L: A Model of Animal Displacement in Large Groups Combining Cohesion Maintenance, Feeding Area Search and Transient Leadership

“…Using CoFee-L, we sought to improve a model of zoochoric seed dispersal to obtain the combined effect of the main dispersing agents and the TDK of a given tree species. Ultimately, we aim to predict the shift and turnover of zoochoric tropical trees species with a dynamic vegetation model (DVM, e.g., [ 7 , 54 ]) under future climate hypotheses. A DVM is able to compute gross photosynthesis and respiration and to allocate fixed carbon to the short-lived and perennial parts of the plants it simulates, from input data such as monthly climate and atmospheric CO 2 concentration and traits describing the plant species, such as the specific leaf area and the nitrogen concentration.…”