Demography, dynamics and data: building confidence for simulating changes in the world's forests.

ABSTRACT: Vegetation demographic models (VDMs) are advanced tools for simulating forest responses to climate and land-use changes, and are essential for projecting carbon cycling and large-scale forest management strategies. Despite their increasing incorporation into Earth System Models, VDMs differ in their demographic assumptions, with no prior quantitative comparison of their performance. We benchmarked nine VDMs against observational data from boreal, temperate and tropical sites, assessing their accuracy in predicting tree growth, carbon turnover, biomass stocks and size distributions. Models were simulated under consistent climate conditions with postdisturbance recovery monitored for at least 420 yr. Postdisturbance carbon recovery trajectories showed significant variability while remaining

SUBMITTER: Eckes-Shephard AH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12630465 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature