Understanding global change impacts on South African biomes using Dynamic Vegetation Models

The Biomes and Vegetation of South Africa

At a global scale the vegetation of the world is sometimes described in terms of six Floristic Regions, often called the Floral Kingdom of the world. The distinction between regions is based on distinctive suites of flowering plants, taking into account those (particularly families) that are exclusive (endemic) to the region. Confined to South Africa is one of these distinct kingdoms; the Cape ...

Evaluating the responses of forest ecosystems to climate change and CO2 using dynamic global vegetation models

The climate has important influences on the distribution and structure of forest ecosystems, which may lead to vital feedback to climate change. However, much of the existing work focuses on the changes in carbon fluxes or water cycles due to climate change and/or atmospheric CO 2, and few studies have considered how and to what extent climate change and CO 2 influence the ecosystem structure (...

Climate Change Impacts on South American Rangelands

Investigation on the Patterns of Global Vegetation Change Using a Satellite-Sensed Vegetation Index

The pattern of vegetation change in response to global change still remains a controversial issue. A Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) dataset compiled by the Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS) was used for analysis. For the period 1982–2006, GIMMS-NDVI analysis indicated that monthly NDVI changes show homogenous trends in middle and high latitude areas in the nor...

Next-generation dynamic global vegetation models: learning from community ecology.

Dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) are powerful tools to project past, current and future vegetation patterns and associated biogeochemical cycles. However, most models are limited by how they define vegetation and by their simplistic representation of competition. We discuss how concepts from community assembly theory and coexistence theory can help to improve vegetation models. We furth...