[PDF] Climatic Control Of Vegetation Distribution eBook

Author : F. I. Woodward
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 14,98 MB
Release : 1987-04-23
Category : Science
ISBN : 9780521282147

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Correlation between plant distribution and climate is examined over different time and space scales to determine the mechanisms of control in physiological and biochemical terms.

Author : Anne E. Kelly
Publisher :
Page : 95 pages
File Size : 36,6 MB
Release : 2014
Category :
ISBN : 9781321301069

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The association between climate and vegetation distribution has long been acknowledged, but quantifying the limits of climate on vegetation growth, biomass, and mortality remains an unsolved problem. Accurate prediction of the effects of climate change requires an understanding of the physiological limitations on vegetation due to climate. Recent increases in forest mortality and wildfire in Western North America has been attributed to warming and drought, but the causal mechanisms have not been identified. This dissertation uses observations of weather and vegetation growth, biomass, and water use to compare diverse ecosystems' responses to temperature and water availability and identify physiological thresholds that could promote ecosystem resilience or vulnerability to climate change. The second chapter constructs a diagnostic framework of climatic control on biomass. The study system was the western slope of the Sierra Nevada Mountains of California. Climatic limitations on growth rates and growing seasons were compared across the gradient, along with ecosystem growth, death, and biomass. A broad "sweet spot" of climate conditions was found, in which winter cold and summer drought were minimal enough to allow a year-round growing season. Outside of this favorable zone, the combination of growing season lengths and mortality rates produced a low-biomass, fast-growing savannah at the lowest elevation and a high-biomass, slow-growing lodgepole forest at the highest elevation. The third chapter examines the mixed conifer forest within the "sweet spot". Two adaptations were identified to allow this forest to maintain year-round growth. First, photosynthesis rates were near maximum even as air temperatures dropped to freezing; this was a lower optimal temperature range than almost any other known forest. Second, this forest largely avoided moisture stress by accessing soil water throughout the summer drought period. The fourth chapter explores relationships between annual precipitation and water use efficiency across ten diverse California ecosystems. The driest ecosystems exhibited low water use efficiency that varied with annual precipitation. Ecosystem water use efficiency at the dry sites responded to variable annual precipitation through increased surface evaporation, high vapor pressure deficit, and high internal CO2 concentrations. The wetter montane conifer sites showed little to no response of water use efficiency to dry years.

Author : Eric Kindseth Waller
Publisher :
Page : 198 pages
File Size : 31,9 MB
Release : 2014
Category :
ISBN :

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ABSTRACT Complexity in Climatic Controls on Plant Species Distribution: Satellite Data Reveal Unique Climate for Giant Sequoia in the California Sierra Nevada by Eric Kindseth Waller Doctor of Philosophy in Environmental Science, Policy, and Management University of California, Berkeley Professor Dennis D. Baldocchi, Chair A better understanding of the environmental controls on current plant species distribution is essential if the impacts of such diverse challenges as invasive species, changing fire regimes, and global climate change are to be predicted and important diversity conserved. Climate, soil, hydrology, various biotic factors (e.g., competition, disease, dispersal), fire, history, and chance can all play a role, but disentangling these factors is a daunting task. Increasingly sophisticated statistical models relying on existing distributions and mapped climatic variables, among others, have been developed to try to answer these questions. Any failure to explain pattern with existing mapped climatic variables is often taken as a referendum on climate as a whole, rather than on the limitations of the particular maps or models. Every location has a unique and constantly changing climate (challenging our definition of climate), so that any distribution could be explained by some aspect of climate. This is not a rationale for doing so - such models would certainly be overly fit to the given conditions and not generalizable. It is an argument for a more complete evaluation of possible climatic controls and the interaction of climate with other important variables (e.g., soil). A lack of adequate maps for various climate and climate-derived variables plays a large role in the failure of modelers to sufficiently address climatic complexity. In particular, site water balance, radiation, humidity, wind, and temporal variability in all of these factors may be poorly understood factors in controlling distributions. Weakness in the mapping of these variables is well recognized in the water balance modeling field, but is less emphasized in the species distribution modeling field, despite the fact that variables that affect the water balance are also likely to play a major role in species distribution. In this dissertation, I 1) improve the mapping of cloud cover from satellite imagery, in order to generate accurate monthly cloud frequency variables; 2) use these cloud frequency variables to demonstrate the possible importance of cloud cover, a previously overlooked climate variable, to the distribution of a particularly charismatic plant species, giant sequoia; and 3) further investigate the climate associated with the frequent cloud cover in the vicinity of giant sequoia, to identify other climatic factors that may also be important to the tree's distribution. Chapter 1 of this dissertation reviews some of the major flaws in species distribution modeling (with existing climate data) and addresses concerns that climate may therefore not be predictive of, or even relevant to, species distributions. Despite problems with climate-based models, climate and climate-derived variables still have substantial merit for explaining species distribution patterns. Additional generation of relevant climate variables and improvements in other climate and climate-derived variables are still needed to demonstrate this more effectively. Satellite data have a long history of being used for vegetation mapping and even species distribution mapping. They have great potential for being used for additional climatic information, and for improved mapping of other climate and climate-derived variables. Improving the characterization of cloud cover frequency with satellite data is one way in which the mapping of important climate and climate-derived variables (e.g., water balance) can be improved. An important input to water balance models, solar radiation maps could be vastly improved with a better mapping of spatial and temporal patterns in cloud cover. Chapter 2 of this dissertation describes the generation of custom daily cloud cover maps from Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) satellite data from 1981-1999 at ~5 km resolution and Moderate Resolution Imagine Spectroradiomter (MODIS) satellite reflectance data at ~500 meter resolution for much of the western U.S., from 2000 to 2012. Intensive comparisons of reflectance spectra from a variety of cloud and snow-covered scenes from the southwestern United States allowed the generation of new rules for the classification of clouds and snow in both the AVHRR and MODIS data. The resulting products avoid many of the problems that plague other cloud mapping efforts, such as the tendency for snow cover and bright desert soils to be mapped as cloud. This consistency in classification across cover types is critically important for any distribution modeling of a plant species that might be dependent on cloud cover. In Chapter 3, monthly cloud frequencies derived from the daily classifications were used directly in species distribution models for giant sequoia (Sequoiadendron giganteum (Lindley) Buchholz) and were found to be the strongest predictors of giant sequoia distribution. A high frequency of cloud cover, especially in the spring, differentiated the climate of the west slope of the southern Sierra Nevada, where giant sequoia are prolific, from central and northern parts of the range, where the tree is rare and generally absent. Other mapped cloud products, contaminated by confusion with high elevation snow, would likely not have found this important result. The result illustrates the importance of accuracy in mapping as well as the importance of previously overlooked aspects of climate for species distribution modeling. But it also raises new questions about why the clouds form where they do and whether they might be associated with other aspects of climate important to giant sequoia distribution. What are the exact climatic mechanisms governing the distribution? Detailed aspects of the local climate warranted more investigation. Chapter 4 investigates the climate associated with the frequent cloud formation over the western slopes of the southern Sierra Nevada: the "sequoia belt". This region is climatically distinct in a number of ways, all of which could be factors in influencing the distribution of giant sequoia and other species. Satellite and micrometeorological flux tower data reveal characteristics of the sequoia belt that were not evident with surface climate measurements and maps derived from them. Results have implications for species distributions everywhere, but especially in rugged mountains, where climates are complex and poorly mapped. Chapter 5 summarizes some of the main conclusions from the work and suggests directions for related future research.

Author : Jonathan Adams
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 281 pages
File Size : 42,78 MB
Release : 2009-11-27
Category : Science
ISBN : 364200881X

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An accessible account of the ways in which the world's plant life affects the climate. It covers everything from tiny local microclimates created by plants to their effect on a global scale. If you’ve ever wondered how vegetation can create clouds, haze and rain, or how plants have an impact on the composition of greenhouse gases, then this book is required reading.

Author : Allen M. Solomon
Publisher : Springer Science & Business Media
Page : 363 pages
File Size : 33,59 MB
Release : 2012-12-06
Category : Science
ISBN : 146152816X

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During the summer of 1987, a series of discussions I was held at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (nASA) in Laxenburg, Austria, to plan a study of global vegetation change. The work was aimed at promoting the Interna tional Geosphere-Biosphere Programme (IGBP), sponsored by the International Council of Scientific Unions (lCSU), of which nASA is a member. Our study was designed to provide initial guidance in the choice of approaches, data sets and objectives for constructing global models of the terrestrial biosphere. We hoped to provide substantive and concrete assistance in formulating the working plans of IGBP by involving program planners in the development and application of models which were assembled from available data sets and modeling ap proaches. Recent acceptance of the "nASA model" as the starting point for endeavors of the Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystems Core Project of the IGBP suggests we were successful in that aim. The objective was implemented by our initiation of a mathematical model of global vegetation, including agriculture, as defined by the forces which control and change vegetation. The model was to illustrate the geographical consequences to vegetation structure and functioning of changing climate and land use, based on plant responses to environmental variables. The completed model was also expected to be useful for examining international environmental policy responses to global change, as well as for studying the validity of IIASA's experimental approaches to environmental policy development.

Author : Guoqing Li
Publisher : Eliva Press
Page : 0 pages
File Size : 25,14 MB
Release : 2022-11-02
Category :
ISBN : 9789994983605

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This book systematically explores climate limits and climate change impacts on plant distribution, especially in China. It involves not only the establishment work flow of related methods such as climatically suitable habitat mapping, limiting climatic factor mapping, climatic niche dynamics assessment, multi-components vulnerability assessment, range shift velocity estimation in three geographical dimensions, but also discusses how climate controls the geographical distribution of plants in China? How specie climatic niche dynamics during afforestation around the world? How does climate change affect the multi-components vulnerability of plants? How does climate change affect the local species extinction risk, species turnover rate and species gain rate and species loss rate of plants in China? How climate change affects species range shift velocity (direction and speed) in China? It also mapped physical based climate change velocity in China for 13 climatic variables, and compared the difference between species velocity and temperature velocity. Besides, the book explores the climate and other factors impact on distribution pattern of seed plant richness in China at province scale, as well as climate change driven range shift of vegetation zone and climatic niche shift of vegetation greenness at regional scale. Various simulation studies will deepen our understanding of the biological and ecological processes on plants limit boundary and range shift. The book should sever as an beneficial book for all those who are interested in plant distribution, climate change ecology, biogeography, climate change adaptation forest management, vegetation restoration and conservation.

Author : Yueyang Jiang
Publisher :
Page : 22 pages
File Size : 25,10 MB
Release : 2012
Category :
ISBN :

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This study aims to assess how high-latitude vegetation may respond under various climate scenarios during the 21st century with a focus on analyzing model parameters induced uncertainty and how this uncertainty compares to the uncertainty induced by various climates. The analysis was based on a set of 10,000 Monte Carlo ensemble Lund-Potsdam-Jena (LPJ) simulations for the northern high latitudes (45°N and polewards) for the period 1900-2100. The LPJ Dynamic Global Vegetation Model (LPJ-DGVM) was run under contemporary and future climates from four Special Report Emission Scenarios (SRES), A1FI, A2, B1, and B2, based on the Hadley Centre General Circulation Model (GCM), and six climate scenarios, X901M, X902L, X903H, X904M, X905L, and X906H from the Integrated Global System Model (IGSM) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In the current dynamic vegetation model, some parameters are more important than others in determining the vegetation distribution. Parameters that control plant carbon uptake and light-use efficiency have the predominant influence on the vegetation distribution of both woody and herbaceous plant functional types. The relative importance of different parameters varies temporally and spatially and is influenced by climate inputs. In addition to climate, these parameters play an important role in determining the vegetation distribution in the region. The parameter-based uncertainties contribute most to the total uncertainty. The current warming conditions lead to a complexity of vegetation responses in the region. Temperate trees will be more sensitive to climate variability, compared with boreal forest trees and C3 perennial grasses. This sensitivity would result in a unanimous northward greenness migration due to anomalous warming in the northern high latitudes. Temporally, boreal needle-leaved evergreen plants are projected to decline considerably, and a large portion of C3 perennial grass is projected to disappear by the end of the 21st century. In contrast, the area of temperate trees would increase, especially under the most extreme A1FI scenario. As the warming continues, the northward greenness expansion in the Arctic region could continue.

Author : Daniel Allen Sarr
Publisher :
Page : 276 pages
File Size : 40,89 MB
Release : 2004
Category : Forest regeneration
ISBN :

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I studied riparian forests of four western Oregon watersheds (dry south to wet north) to determine the multiscale controls on woody riparian vegetation. I conducted separate analyses of controls on plant distribution, diversity, and tree regeneration using vegetation and environmental data collected in two related field studies: (1) a multiscale riparian forest inventory; (2) a comparative study of natural forest gaps and interiors. Climatic moisture, indexed by vapor pressure deficit in summer, was the primary correlate of compositional change between riparian sites at all scales analyzed, demonstrating that the majority of riparian species responded directly or indirectly to the landscape scale climate gradient. Additional variation in composition was explained by measures of local topography and disturbance. Climate, as indexed by modeled gross primary productivity (GPP), explained the majority of the variation in multiple regression models of plant diversity that included local and landscape scale variables. As GPP increased from dry to wet climates, understory light and moisture heterogeneity decreased, coincident with declines in alpha, beta, and hectare scale diversity, suggesting that climate controls diversity indirectly through its effects on local conditions. Tree regeneration varied sharply across the climate gradient; seedling frequency and diversity declined and nurse log use increased from the driest to wettest climates. Life history attributes of riparian tree species provided important clues to their regeneration success in different environments. These relationships were explored in a model that linked species shade and drought tolerance with expected variation in the environment caused by climate and disturbance. The model accurately predicted regeneration patterns for four of five functional groups of tree species. The studies in this dissertation provided compelling evidence of regional variation in riparian vegetation composition, diversity, and dynamics, illustrating that these communities are strongly shaped by landscape scale as well as local scale factors. Moreover, climate-related differences among riparian sites were at least as important as the local variation within them in explaining spatial vegetation patterns. These findings argue for a multiscale perspective of riparian forest ecology that closely integrates larger scale controls, such as climate, with local hydrologic processes.