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Drivers of recent forest cover change in southern South America are linked to climate and CO2

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Abstract

Abstract and background

Widespread changes in forest structure and distribution have been documented in northern Patagonia over the past century. We employed LPJ-GUESS, a dynamic global vegetation model (DGVM) to investigate the role of climate, atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2), and fire on simulated forest cover during the twentieth century. Our objective was to assess the drivers responsible for forest change to temperature, precipitation, radiation, fire and atmospheric CO2

Results

Simulations using observed changes in climate and CO2 from 1930 to 2010, showed an increase in forest cover under changing climate and CO2, because of higher carbon assimilation and net primary production. The model results were compared with a remote-sensing-derived biomass map and ‘greening’ indices from the normalized difference vegetation index. Model simulations and satellite data both show increased greening at high and low elevations. In contrast, simulations using pre-industrial climate and CO2 conditions resulted in a decrease in fire frequency and lower simulated biomass than is reflected by present-day vegetation.

Conclusion

Our simulations shows that climate is the primary driver and CO2 fertilization is the secondary driver of forest expansion in northern Patagonia. We suggest that rising CO2 mitigates climate-induced drought stress due to increases in water-use efficiency.

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Acknowledgements

Research was supported by National Science Foundation grants GSS 1461590. We thank T. Kitzberger, J. Paritsis, J. Gowda for their helpful suggestions in improving the manuscript and also for their contribution in parameterizing PFTs, tree species and grasses used for LPJ-GUESS simulation during the 2016 spring workshop in Bariloche, Argentina. This paper also benefited from the comments of Laura Burkle (Department of Ecology, Montana State University, Bozeman, USA)

Funding

This research was supported by the National Science Foundation Grant GSS 1461590.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, 59717, USA

    Ayodele Ogunkoya & David W. Roberts

  2. Department of Earth Sciences, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Pokfulam, Hong Kong

    Jed Kaplan & Cathy Whitlock

  3. Montana Institute on Ecosystem, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT, 59717, USA

    Cathy Whitlock

  4. Department of Geography, Portland State University, Portland, OR, 97201, USA

    William Nanavati

  5. Biospheric Science Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, 20771, USA

    Benjamin Poulter

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  1. Ayodele Ogunkoya
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the final manuscript. AO designed the research, processed the data, discussed the results, and contributed to the writing of the manuscript, JK contributed to the analysis of the results. CW contributed to funding the study, discussing results, and editing of the manuscript, WN contributed to the editing of the manuscript and discussing the results, BP contributed to funding the study, analysis of results and writing of the manuscript, DR contributed to the writing and analysis of the results. All authors discussed the results and drew the conclusions.

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Correspondence to Ayodele Ogunkoya.

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Ogunkoya, A., Kaplan, J., Whitlock, C. et al. Drivers of recent forest cover change in southern South America are linked to climate and CO2. Landscape Ecol 36, 3591–3606 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-021-01330-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-021-01330-7

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