Multiple stable states of tree cover in a global land surface model due to a fire‐vegetation feedback

Lasslop, Gitta; Brovkin, Victor; Reick, Christian H.; Bathiany, Sebastian; Kloster, Silvia

doi:10.1002/2016gl069365

Cited by 72 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 53 publications

(59 reference statements)

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“…The individualbased Populations-Order-Physiology model also included size-dependent tree mortality and was able to reproduce key vegetation structure and function along a rainfall and fire gradient in Australia (Haverd et al, 2013). Studies by Baudena et al (2015) and Lasslop et al (2016) have proposed several key mechanisms for capturing savannas in models: (1) water limitation on tree growth, (2) competition for water between grasses and trees, and (3) a grass-fire feedback.…”

Section: Implications For Tree-grass Coexistencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…ED2 explicitly scales up tree-level competition for light, water, and nutrients to the ecosystem level (Medvigy et al, 2009;Medvigy and Moorcroft, 2012). The effects of water limitation on photosynthesis have been previously identified to be important for simulating savanna-grass dynamics (Baudena et al, 2015;Lasslop et al, 2016). Correspondingly, a novel aspect of the version of ED2 used in this study is the mechanistic representation of water-limited photosynthesis, whereby leaf and stem water potential are tracked and used to solve for root zone water uptake, transport of water vertically through the sapwood, and transpiration of water into the atmosphere.…”

Section: Model Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, progress has recently been made in identifying some key mechanisms needed to stabilize savannas in dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) (Scheiter and Higgins, 2009;Lehsten et al, 2016;Baudena et al, 2015;Higgins et al, 2000;Haverd et al, 2013;Lasslop et al, 2016). Despite recent progress, DVGMs are still unable to fully capture global savanna extent as emergent features, generally overpredicting the extent of either grasslands or tropical forests (Lasslop et al, 2016). This makes it difficult to quantify the impacts of projected climate change on carbon storage in the tropics because both carbon storage capacity and the resistance of ecosystem carbon to changes in precipitation and fire regime vary across tropical biomes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sensitivity of woody carbon stocks to bark investment strategy in Neotropical savannas and forests

et al. 2018

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Abstract. Fire frequencies are changing in Neotropical savannas and forests as a result of forest fragmentation and increasing drought. Such changes in fire regime and climate are hypothesized to destabilize tropical carbon storage, but there has been little consideration of the widespread variability in tree fire tolerance strategies. To test how aboveground carbon stocks change with fire frequency and composition of plants with different fire tolerance strategies, we update the Ecosystem Demography model 2 (ED2) with (i) a fire survivorship module based on tree bark thickness (a key fire-tolerance trait across woody plants in savannas and forests), and (ii) plant functional types representative of trees in the region. With these updates, the model is better able to predict how fire frequency affects population demography and aboveground woody carbon. Simulations illustrate that the high survival rate of thick-barked, large trees reduces carbon losses with increasing fire frequency, with high investment in bark being particularly important in reducing losses in the wettest sites. Additionally, in landscapes that frequently burn, bark investment can broaden the range of climate and fire conditions under which savannas occur by reducing the range of conditions leading to either complete tree loss or complete grass loss. These results highlight that tropical vegetation dynamics depend not only on rainfall and changing fire frequencies but also on tree fire survival strategy. Further, our results indicate that fire survival strategy is fundamentally important in regulating tree size demography in ecosystems exposed to fire, which increases the preservation of aboveground carbon stocks and the coexistence of different plant functional groups.

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Section: Implications For Tree-grass Coexistencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Model Descriptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Sensitivity of woody carbon stocks to bark investment strategy in Neotropical savannas and forests

et al. 2018

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“…Vegetation in the MPI Earth system model including SPITFIRE is not only a function of climate but also depends on the history of previous vegetation due to the feedback between fire and vegetation (Lasslop et al, 2016). We did not isolate the effect of 15 the multi-stability in this study but initialized the model with the standard vegetation initialization of the MPI-ESM for the year 1850.…”

Section: Difference Between Continentsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tropical climate-vegetation-fire relationships: multivariate evaluation of the land surface model JSBACH

Lasslop

Möller²,

D'Onghio³

et al. 2018

Preprint

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Abstract. The interactions between climate, vegetation and fire can strongly influence the future trajectories of vegetation in Earth system models. We evaluate the relationships between tropical climate, vegetation and fire in the global vegetation model JSBACH, using a simple fire scheme and the complex fire model SPITFIRE with the aim to identify potential for model improvement. We use two remote sensing products (based on MODIS and Landsat) in different resolutions to assess the robustness of the obtained observed relationships. We evaluate the model using a multivariate comparison that allows 5 to focus on the interactions between climate, vegetation and fire and test the influence of land use change on the modelled patterns. Climate-vegetation-fire relationships are known to differ between continents we therefore perform the analysis for each continent separately.The observed relationships are similar in the two satellite datasets, but maximum tree cover is reached at higher precipitation values for coarser resolution. The model captures the broad spatial patterns with regional differences, which are partly due to 10 the climate forcing derived from an Earth system model. SPITFIRE strongly improves the spatial pattern of burned area and the distribution of burned area along increasing precipitation compared to the simple fire scheme. Surprisingly the correlation between precipitation and tree cover is higher in the observations than in the largely climate driven vegetation model, with both fire models. The multivariate comparison identifies a too high tree cover in low precipitation areas and a too strong relationship between high fire occurrence and low tree cover for the complex fire model. We therefore suggest that drought effects on tree 15 cover and the impact of burned area on tree cover or the adaptation of trees to fire can be improved. The model reproduces the linear increase of tree cover with increasing precipitation for Australia, compared to the sigmoid increase for the other continents. As we find this linear increase for both fire models as well as for present day and preindustrial land use, we conclude that it appears in the model due to differences in climate not captured by mean annual precipitation. Land use contributes to the intercontinental differences in fire regimes with SPITFIRE and strongly overprints the modelled multimodality of tree cover 20 with SPITFIRE. The multivariate comparison between observations and model used here has several advantages: it improves the attribution of model-data mismatches to model processes, it reduces the impact of biases in the meteorological forcing on the evaluation and it allows to evaluate not only a specific target variable but also the interactions. 1Biogeosciences Discuss., https://doi

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“…Moreover, at much larger scales across both African and South American landscapes, it has been noted that the observed burned area is very small in landscapes with more than 40% tree cover (Archibald et al, 2009;Wuyts et al, 2017). Such observations resonate with the idea of a positive feedback in which trees can prevent fire, thus stabilizing a forest state versus a landscape that is maintained open through fire (Staver et al, 2011b;Murphy & Bowman, 2012;Lasslop et al, 2016). …”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 81%

Resilience of tropical forest and savanna: bridging theory and observation

Staal¹

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Multiple stable states of tree cover in a global land surface model due to a fire‐vegetation feedback

Cited by 72 publications

References 53 publications

Sensitivity of woody carbon stocks to bark investment strategy in Neotropical savannas and forests

Sensitivity of woody carbon stocks to bark investment strategy in Neotropical savannas and forests

Tropical climate-vegetation-fire relationships: multivariate evaluation of the land surface model JSBACH

Resilience of tropical forest and savanna: bridging theory and observation

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