Forest forecasting with vegetation models across Russia

Abstract

Vegetation models are essential tools for projecting large-scale land-cover response to changing climate, which is expected to alter the distribution of biomes and individual species. A large-scale bioclimatic envelope model (RuBCliM) and an individual species based gap model (UVAFME) are used to simulate the Russian forests under current and future climate for two greenhouse gas emissions scenarios. Results for current conditions are compared between models and assessed against two independent maps of Russian forest biomes and dominant tree species. Comparisons measured with kappa statistics indicate good agreement between the models (kappa values from 0.76 to 0.69), as well as between the model results and two observation-based maps for both species presence and absence (kappa values from 0.70 to 0.43). Agreement between these multiple types of data on forest distribution provides confidence in the projected forest response to changing climate. For future conditions, both models indicate a shift in the dominant biomes from conifers to deciduous leaved species. These projections have implications for feedbacks between the energy budget, carbon cycle, and land cover in the boreal system. The distinct biome and species changes emphasize the need for continued investigation of this landmass that has the size necessary to influence regional and global climate.

Fire disturbance and climate change: implications for Russian forests

“…It is an object-oriented version of FAREAST (Yan and Shugart 2005). Simulated species biomass, composition, and basal area have been validated along an elevation gradient in northeastern China and against forest type at sites in eastern Russia (Yan and Shugart 2005), against species inventory data from 44 forest locations spanning from eastern to western Russia (Shuman et al 2014), and against dominant species and forest biomes from a bioclimatic envelope model and two observation-based maps across Russia (Shuman et al 2015). A detailed description of UVAFME can be found in Supplement S2 available at stacks.iop.org/ERL/12/035003/mmedia.…”

“…UVAFME is used to simulate species composition and biomass at 31 010 gridded sites with a spatial resolution of 23 km  23 km for coverage across Russia. Site and species parameters are derived as in Shuman et al (2015) and summarized in Supplement S2. Historical daily temperature and precipitation conditions at each site are derived from statistical distributions of mean monthly temperature and precipitation from 60 years of weather station data for the period from 1941 to 2001 (NCDC 2005a(NCDC , 2005b.…”

Future vegetation–climate interactions in Eastern Siberia: an assessment of the competing effects of CO<sub>2</sub> and secondary organic aerosols

“…These observations thus support the modelled shift in vegetation zones and the change in vegetation type composition and productivity. Likewise, other models with dynamic vegetation also have shown a strong expansion of broadleaved forests at the southern edge of the Siberian region in response to warming (Shuman et al, 2015).…”

Modeling the interactive effects of spruce beetle infestation and climate on subalpine vegetation

“…The University of Virginia Forest Model Enhanced simulates the regeneration, growth, and death of individual trees on independent patches of a forested landscape, with each patch/ plot experiencing the same site and climate conditions. A complete description of the equations and subroutines within UVAFME can be found in Shuman et al (2015) and in the UVAFME User's Manual in Foster et al (2017). Plots are assumed to have no direct horizontal spatial interactions with one another.…”

“…New trees can regenerate each year based on climate and environmental conditions, disturbance occurrence, species-specific tolerances, and species' seedbanks (which are also modified each year based on site and climate conditions). A complete description of the equations and subroutines within UVAFME can be found in Shuman et al (2015) and in the UVAFME User's Manual in Foster et al (2017). This model has been updated and parameterized for the southern Rocky Mountains (Foster et al 2015, and it was found that model output on size structure and speciesspecific biomass agreed with inventory data within the subalpine zone.…”