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Modeling Productivity in Mangrove Forests as Impacted by Effective Soil Water Availability and Its Sensitivity to Climate Change Using Biome-BGC

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Abstract

Ecosystem dynamics and the responses to climate change in mangrove forests are poorly understood. We applied the biogeochemical process model Biome-BGC to simulate the dynamics of net primary productivity (NPP) and leaf area index (LAI) under the present and future climate conditions in mangrove forests in Shenzhen, Zhanjiang, and Qiongshan across the southern coast of China, and in three monocultural mangrove stands of two native species, Avicennia marina and Kandelia obovata, and one exotic species, Sonneratia apetala, in Shenzhen. The soil hydrological process of the model was modified by incorporating a soil water (SW) stress index to account for the impact of the effective SW availability in the coastal wetland. Our modified Biome-BGC well predicted the dynamics of NPP and LAI in the mangrove forests at the study sites. We found that the six mangrove systems differed in sensitivity to variations in the effective SW availability. At the ecosystem level, however, soil salinity alone could not entirely explain the limitation of the effective SW availability on the productivity of mangrove forests. Increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration differentially affected growth of different mangrove species but only had a small impact on NPP (<7%); whereas a doubling of atmospheric CO2 concentration associated with a 2°C temperature rise would increase NPP by 14–19% across the three geographically separate mangrove forests and by 12% to as much as 68% across the three monocultural mangrove stands. Our simulation analysis indicates that temperature change is more important than increasing CO2 concentration in affecting productivity of mangroves at the ecosystem level, and that different mangrove species differ in sensitivity to increases in temperature and CO2 concentration.

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Acknowledgements

This study was jointly funded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant KSCX2-SW-132), the State Forestry Administration of China (200804001), and the Ministry of Science and Technology of China (2008BADB0B0302). Financial support from a joint PhD program to Zhongkui Luo under the CSIRO-MOE (Ministry of Education, China) Scientific Exchange Agreement is also greatly acknowledged. We thank Luzhen Chen and Xueqing Zeng for field assistance, Charlie Chen for help with the graphic drawing, and Futian Mangrove Natural Reserve for site access permission and technical support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. MOE Key Laboratory for Silviculture and Conservation, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, 100083, China

    Zhongkui Luo & Osbert Jianxin Sun

  2. State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093, China

    Zhongkui Luo

  3. CSIRO Land and Water, Black Mountain, Canberra, Australian Capital Territory, 2601, Australia

    Enli Wang

  4. South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Guangzhou, 510650, China

    Hai Ren

  5. Neilingding-Futian National Nature Reserve of Guangdong, Shenzhen, 518040, China

    Hualin Xu

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  1. Zhongkui Luo
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  2. Osbert Jianxin Sun
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  3. Enli Wang
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  4. Hai Ren
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  5. Hualin Xu
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Correspondence to Osbert Jianxin Sun.

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Author Contributions

Zhongkui Luo carried out the field measurements and data analysis, ran simulation, and wrote the manuscript. Osbert J. Sun designed the experiment and wrote the manuscript. Enli Wang contributed to modeling and manuscript writing. Hai Ren and Hualin Xu contributed data and helped with field measurements and data collections.

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Luo, Z., Sun, O.J., Wang, E. et al. Modeling Productivity in Mangrove Forests as Impacted by Effective Soil Water Availability and Its Sensitivity to Climate Change Using Biome-BGC. Ecosystems 13, 949–965 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10021-010-9365-y

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