A water budget approach to predicting tree species growth and abundance, utilizing paleoclimatology sources

Climate Research

James M. Dyer¹ 

关键词: Water budget;    Pollen;    Tree rings;    General circulation model;    Scale;    Beech;   

DOI  :  10.3354/cr028001

来源: Inter-Research Science Publishing

【 摘 要 】

ABSTRACT: Biogeographers and ecologists often need to quantify species-environment relationships to understand the distribution of vegetation, and to assess changes in patterns resulting from environmental change. A water budget approach, whichincorporates evaporative demand and moisture availability, is compared to traditional climatic variables in terms of ability to predict species growth and abundance in eastern North America. Firstly, tree growth is examined using tree-ring chronologiesobtained from the International Tree-Ring Data Bank, correlated with climatic data from the nearest site in the US Historical Climatology Network. Secondly, logistic regression is used to model the range of American beech (Fagus grandifolia) usingpollen records from the World Data Center for Paleoclimatology, and climatic data from NCAR’s Community Climate Model (CCM1) general circulation model (GCM) for the control, 6 ka, and 11 ka runs. Tree growth, especially for oaks and other deciduoustrees, correlates more strongly with early growing-season deficit than with precipitation. Water budget variables (actual evapotranspiration and deficit) are also more effective than traditional climatic variables in modeling the range of beech. A waterbudget approach is attractive for modeling vegetation dynamics because it transcends geographic scale; it is able to model both local and continental-scale phenomena.

【 授权许可】

Unknown