BGC-model parameters for tree species growing in central European forests

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During the last centuries forest management has changed the structure and species composition of central European forests. One option to assess forest management and how management impacts may affect forest development over time is the use of biogeochemical ecosystem simulation models. They integrate key ecosystem processes and have proven to be an appropriate diagnostic tool. If we consider that in the past, forest management has strongly affected the species distribution and the structure of central European forests, existing biogeochemical models need to integrate species-specific parameters so that they can adequately address forest management practices such as species changes, stand density etc. The purpose of this paper is to introduce species-specific parameters for one such model, Biome-BGC, for the following tree species as observed in central European forests: Fagus sylvatica, Quercus robur/petraea, Larix decidua, Pinus sylvestris, Pinus cembra as well as two sets of parameters for Picea abies growing at low and high elevations. We first evaluate and test model results obtained with parameters from the literature and single research plots. This evaluation procedure gives our final species-specific parameters that are then used in the model. Next we validate the quality of the model predictions using these parameters versus field observations covering the growing range of a given species by comparing standing tree volume, volume increment, soil carbon and soil nitrogen on 145 independent plots. Our results demonstrate that the species-specific parameters yielded consistent and unbiased predictions.