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Topographic variation in the climatic change response of a larch forest in Northeastern China

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Abstract

Context

Due to the spatial heterogeneity of the disturbance regimes and community assemblages along topoclimatic gradients, the response of forest ecosystem to climate change varies at the landscape scale.

Objectives

Our objective was to quantify the possible changes in forest ecosystems and the relative effects of climate warming and fire regime changes in different topographic positions.

Methods

We used a spatially explicit model (LANDIS PRO) combined with a gap model (LINKAGES) to predict the possible response of boreal larch forests to climate and fire regime changes, and examined how this response would vary in different topographic positions.

Results

The result showed that the proportion of landscape occupied by broadleaf species increased under warming climate and frequent fires scenarios. Shifts in species composition were strongly influenced by both climate warming and more frequent fires, while changes in age structure were mainly controlled by shifts in fire regime. These responses varied in the different topographic positions, with forests in valley bottoms being most resilient to climate-fire changes and forests in uplands being more likely to shift their composition from larch-dominant to mixed forests. Such variation in the topographic response may be induced by the heterogeneities of the environmental conditions and fire regime.

Conclusions

Fire disturbance could alter the equilibrium of ecosystems and accelerate the response of forests to climate warming. These effects are largely modulated by topographic variations. Our findings suggest that it is imperative to consider topographic complexities when developing appropriate fire management policies for mitigating the effects of climate change.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2017YFA0604403), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Project No. 31270511, 41222004, 31470517, 31500387 & 41501200), CAS Interdisciplinary Innovation Team, and the Hundred Talent Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The authors thank Xu Luo and Xiaona Li for their help in parameterizing LANDIS PRO. We also thank three anonymous reviewers and academic editor for comments that improved this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Environment Change and Resources Use in Beibu Gulf (Guangxi Teachers Education University), Ministry of Education, Nanning, 530001, People’s Republic of China

    Wen H. Cai & Yuan Z. Yang

  2. Guangxi Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Intelligent Simulation (Guangxi Teachers Education University), Nanning, 530001, People’s Republic of China

    Wen H. Cai & Yuan Z. Yang

  3. Department of Forestry and Natural Resources, TP Cooper Building, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, 40546, USA

    Jian Yang

  4. School of Geographical Sciences, Northeast Normal University, Changchun, 130024, People’s Republic of China

    Hong S. He

  5. School of Natural Resources, University of Missouri-Columbia, 203 ABNR Building, Columbia, MO, 65211, USA

    Hong S. He

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  1. Wen H. Cai
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  2. Yuan Z. Yang
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  4. Hong S. He
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Correspondence to Jian Yang.

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Cai, W.H., Yang, Y.Z., Yang, J. et al. Topographic variation in the climatic change response of a larch forest in Northeastern China. Landscape Ecol 33, 2013–2029 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-018-0711-3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-018-0711-3

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