The challenges of forest modeling given climate change

Abstract

Forest landscape modeling encompasses many core principles of landscape ecology: spatial resolution and extent, spatially explicit local and regional context, disturbance dynamics, integration of human activity, and explicit links to management and policy. Models of forest change inform land managers about strategies to adapt to the effects of an altered or changing environment across large, forested landscapes. Despite past successes, major challenges remain for landscape ecologists representing the dynamics of complex systems with a computer model, particularly given climate change. Here, I review major modeling challenges unique to climate change and suggest paths forward as climate change increasingly becomes a focus of landscape modeling efforts.