University of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro, North Carolina, USA.
University of Wyoming, Laramie, Wyoming, USA.
Glob Chang Biol. 2023 Dec;29(23):6453-6477. doi: 10.1111/gcb.16950. Epub 2023 Oct 10.
Grassland and other herbaceous communities cover significant portions of Earth's terrestrial surface and provide many critical services, such as carbon sequestration, wildlife habitat, and food production. Forecasts of global change impacts on these services will require predictive tools, such as process-based dynamic vegetation models. Yet, model representation of herbaceous communities and ecosystems lags substantially behind that of tree communities and forests. The limited representation of herbaceous communities within models arises from two important knowledge gaps: first, our empirical understanding of the principles governing herbaceous vegetation dynamics is either incomplete or does not provide mechanistic information necessary to drive herbaceous community processes with models; second, current model structure and parameterization of grass and other herbaceous plant functional types limits the ability of models to predict outcomes of competition and growth for herbaceous vegetation. In this review, we provide direction for addressing these gaps by: (1) presenting a brief history of how vegetation dynamics have been developed and incorporated into earth system models, (2) reporting on a model simulation activity to evaluate current model capability to represent herbaceous vegetation dynamics and ecosystem function, and (3) detailing several ecological properties and phenomena that should be a focus for both empiricists and modelers to improve representation of herbaceous vegetation in models. Together, empiricists and modelers can improve representation of herbaceous ecosystem processes within models. In so doing, we will greatly enhance our ability to forecast future states of the earth system, which is of high importance given the rapid rate of environmental change on our planet.
草原和其他草本群落覆盖了地球陆地表面的很大一部分，提供了许多关键服务，如碳封存、野生动物栖息地和粮食生产。预测全球变化对这些服务的影响将需要预测工具，如基于过程的动态植被模型。然而，模型对草本群落和生态系统的表示远远落后于对树木群落和森林的表示。模型中对草本群落的有限表示源于两个重要的知识差距：首先，我们对支配草本植被动态的原则的经验理解要么不完整，要么没有提供必要的机制信息来用模型驱动草本群落过程；其次，当前模型结构和草及其他草本植物功能型的参数化限制了模型预测草本植被竞争和生长结果的能力。在这篇综述中，我们通过以下方式为解决这些差距提供了方向：（1）简要介绍植被动态是如何发展并纳入地球系统模型的；（2）报告模型模拟活动，以评估当前模型代表草本植被动态和生态系统功能的能力；（3）详细介绍几个生态属性和现象，这些属性和现象应该是经验主义者和建模者关注的焦点，以提高模型对草本植被的表示。通过共同努力，经验主义者和建模者可以提高模型中草本生态系统过程的表示。这样做，我们将大大提高我们预测地球系统未来状态的能力，鉴于我们星球上环境变化的快速速度，这一点非常重要。
