Modeling the Potential Response of Vegetation to Global Climate Change

This chapter is a review on the modeling of the potential response of vegetation to global climate change. Models provide a means of formalizing a set of assumptions/hypotheses linking pattern and process, allowing for extrapolation beyond the range of observed phenomena. The purpose of this chapter is not to provide an exhaustive review of models relating climate and plant pattern; rather it is to examine a specific set of models which are currently being used to investigate the question of plant response to climate change at a global scale. The focus is on developing a methodology for predicting changes in the large-scale distribution of vegetation (that is, global distribution of biomes or ecosystem complexes) under changing global climate patterns. This chapter starts with a discussion on climate–vegetation classification. The chapter focuses on the application of holdridge life-zone classification to climate change at a global scale, followed by the application of a plant energy balance model to predicting changes in leaf area under changing climate conditions. This is followed by the description of modeling temporal dynamics. Furthermore, this chapter introduces individual-based forest gap models. The chapter ends with the discussion of application of gap models to predict forest response to climate change.