California annual grass phenology and allometry influence ecosystem dynamics and fire regime in a vegetation demography model.

ABSTRACT: Grass-dominated ecosystems cover wide areas of the land surface yet have received far less attention from the Earth System Model (ESM) community. This limits model projections of ecosystem dynamics in response to global change and coupled vegetation-climate dynamics. We used the Functionally Assembled Terrestrial Ecosystem Simulator (FATES), a dynamic vegetation demography model, to determine ecosystem sensitivity to alternate, observed grass allometries and biophysical traits, and evaluated model performance in capturing California C₃ annual grasslands structure and fire regimes. Grass allometry, leaf physiology, plant phenology, and plant mortality all drove the seasonal variation in matter and energy exchange and fire dynamics in California annual grasslands. Allometry influe

SUBMITTER: Gao X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11840405 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature