The Effect of Dynamic Mortality Incorporated in BIOME-BGC on Modelling the Development of Natural Forests

Abstract

The presented paper evaluates the ability of BIOME-BGC model to simulate the small developmental cycle of natural forests after the incorporation of the dynamic mortality module. For the analysis we used the data from the Norway spruce (Picea abies L./Karst.) virgin forest Babia hora in Slovakia, which were equally divided into three developmental stages of virgin forests: stage of growth, optimum, and breakdown. The assessment of the simulated developmental cycle was based on the error analysis of the three main carbon pools (carbon content in stem, coarse woody debris, and soil) in individual developmental stages and the temporal performance of carbon fluxes over the whole developmental cycle. The results indicate that with the current dynamic mortality the model BIOME-BGC is capable of simulating the small developmental cycle of virgin forests.

Keywords: biogeochemical model, carbon cycle, developmental stage, flux dynamics, small developmental cycle, virgin forest