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The role of carbon flux and biometric observations in constraining a terrestrial ecosystem model: a case study in disturbed forests in East Asia

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Ecological Research

Abstract

The process of confining unnecessary freedom is a step toward advanced ecosystem modeling. This study demonstrates the importance of carbon flux and biometric observation in constraining a terrestrial ecosystem model with a simple optimization scheme. At the selected sites from AsiaFlux network, a simultaneous optimization scheme for both carbon flux and biomass was compared with carbon flux-oriented and biomass-oriented optimization schemes using the Biome-BGC model. The optimization scheme oriented to either carbon flux or biomass provided simulation results that were consistent with observations, but with reduced performance in unconstrained variables. The simultaneous optimization scheme yielded results that were consistent with observations for both carbon flux and biomass. By comparing long-term projections simulated by three schemes, it was found that the optimization oriented only to carbon flux has limited performance because misrepresented biomass significantly affected a projection of carbon exchange through heterotrophic respiration. From these experiments, we found that (1) a process model like Biome-BGC is capable of reproducing both carbon flux and biomass within acceptable proximity, (2) constraining biomass is importance not just because it is one of carbon cycle components, but also it significantly affects simulations of carbon flux. Thus, it is important to invest more effort to improve simulation of biomass as well as carbon flux.

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by the Environment Research and Technology Development Funds (RFa-1007 and RFa-1201) of the Ministry of the Environment of Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Symbiotic Systems Science, Fukushima University, 1 Kanayagawa, Fukushima, 960-1296, Japan

    Masayuki Kondo & Kazuhito Ichii

  2. Graduate School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Osaka Prefecture University, 1-1 Gakuen-cho, Naka-ku, Sakai, Osaka, 599-8531, Japan

    Masahito Ueyama

  3. Hokkaido Research Center, Forestry and Forest Products Research Institute, 7 Hitsujigaoka, Toyohira, Sapporo, 062-8516, Japan

    Yasuko Mizoguchi

  4. National Institute for Environmental Studies, 16-2, Onogawa, Tsukuba, 305-8506, Japan

    Ryuichi Hirata & Nobuko Saigusa

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  1. Masayuki Kondo
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  2. Kazuhito Ichii
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  3. Masahito Ueyama
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  4. Yasuko Mizoguchi
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  5. Ryuichi Hirata
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  6. Nobuko Saigusa
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Correspondence to Masayuki Kondo.

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Kondo, M., Ichii, K., Ueyama, M. et al. The role of carbon flux and biometric observations in constraining a terrestrial ecosystem model: a case study in disturbed forests in East Asia. Ecol Res 28, 893–905 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-013-1072-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-013-1072-7

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