Modeling the Response of Vegetation Distribution and Biodiversity to Climate Change

Abstract

The natural ecosystems of the world may be divided into a small set of biomes, each characterized by the dominance of one or more functional types of plants. At regional-to-global scales climate exerts a dominant influence over the distribution of these plant functional types (Woodward 1987). Smaller-scale variations in distribution may be controlled by smaller-scale features of the environment (e.g., soils and topography). Specific climatic controls on the distribution of these dominant plant functional types may be categorized as ecophysiological constraints, resource availability, and competition mediated by the effects of climate. Ecophysiological constraints on individual plant functional types account for the gross qualitative features of biome distribution, and such constraints have been incorporated into a number of rule-based vegetation models (Woodward 1987); (Neilson et al. 1992); (Prentice et al. 1992).