Process-based models of Mediterranean forest production and dynamics

Abstract

Sustainable management of forest ecosystems requires an understanding of the mechanisms governing their structure and function across levels of biological organization, from the leaf to the ecosystem. Process-based models are, along experimentation, a critical element for advancing in this understanding. In this contribution we review key advances and challenges for the development of process-based models of Mediterranean forest ecosystems at several functional levels: from the whole-plant to the landscape. At the whole-plant level we discuss a gas exchange simulator that describes explicitly the feedback between transpiration and soil water potential through a plant optimization process. At the stand level, a partial differential equation framework is introduced, that allows us to scale up plant physiological processes from the leaf to the stand level. The model describes explicitly the dynamics of stand structure based on species individual responses to resource heterogeneity and among tree interactions. Finally we discuss the general structure of spatially-explicit forest models as well as their application to the identification of rules of community assembly of Mediterranean forests.