Abstract
Understanding the processes that shape forest functioning, structure, and diversity remains challenging, although data on forest systems are being collected at a rapid pace and across scales. Forest models have a long history in bridging data with ecological knowledge and can simulate forest dynamics over spatio‐temporal scales unreachable by most empirical investigations.We describe the development that different forest modelling communities have followed to underpin the leverage that simulation models offer for advancing our understanding of forest ecosystems.Using three widely applied but contrasting approaches – species distribution models, individual‐based forest models, and dynamic global vegetation models – as examples, we show how scientific and technical advances have led models to transgress their initial objectives and limitations. We provide an overview of recent model applications on current important ecological topics and pinpoint ten key questions that could, and should, be tackled with forest models in the next decade.Synthesis. This overview shows that forest models, due to their complementarity and mutual enrichment, represent an invaluable toolkit to address a wide range of fundamental and applied ecological questions, hence fostering a deeper understanding of forest dynamics in the context of global change.
Highlights
The three model types we briefly present here —species distribution models (SDMs), individual-based forest models (IBMs), and dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) —cover a gradient from models that initially focused on a detailed representation of individual species to models that gave initial emphasis to the representation of forest structure and tree demography, to others that focused on the representation of biogeochemical processes
The development of forest models crucially benefits from the interactions among scientists from various fields, within and across modelling communities, and with field ecologists, physiologists, data scientists, computer engineers, remote-sensing researchers, and a variety of stakeholders
Forest models can disentangle the drivers of community assembly in forest communities, complementing theoretical approaches that typically remain limited to simplified systems
Summary
Each of these model types has been gaining in efficiency and capabilities as illustrated by the aforementioned recent model developments: next-generation DGVMs strive to explicitly represent tree demography and diversity within PFTs, and account for forest structure, IBMs refine their representation of biogeochemical cycles, while SDMs endeavor to include process- based information.
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