A role-type model (rope) and its application in assessing climate change impacts on forest landscapes

Gap-phase replacement is a general phenomenon found in forest ecosystems, worldwide. Different tree species can be expected to produce different sizes of gaps when they die. Species also vary in their regeneration success in gaps of different sizes. In this paper, the gap-phase interactions among tree species in a forest stand are simulated by a role-type stand model called ROPE. By incorporation of environmental effects on tree height, ROPE can simulate forest composition and stand leaf area under different climate conditions. The model was developed for forest ecosystems in northeastern China and was used to simulate the forest landscape structures under current climate conditions and under four climate change scenarios for greenhouse gas related warming. These scenarios were obtained from general circulation models developed by different atmospheric research centers. Korean pinebroadleaf mixed forest and larch forest are the major stand types in the study area under present conditions. Under the four climate change scenarios, Korean pine-broadleaf mixed forest would be expected to occur only on the higher parts of large mountains. Larch forest only would be found north of the study area. Broadleaf forest would become the dominant vegetation over the study area. Use of the Kappa statistic to test for similarity in spatial maps, indicates that each climate change scenario would result in a significant change of forest distributions.Supported by The United States National Science Foundation Grant BSR-8702333 to University of Virginia.