Forests and Grassland Dynamics

Forests cover roughly 30% of the earth’s land surface, but land-use and climatic change are modifying and threatening these ecosystems.
To protect forests a better understanding of forest dynamics is crucial. Therefore, we have developed a family of process-based forest
models: FORMIND and FORMIX. The models are used to simulate the spatio-temporal dynamics of mixed-species forests in combination with
disturbances (e.g. logging, drought, storms). Both models calculate tree growth, tree mortality, the carbon balance of individual trees,
competition for light, water and space, and recruitment processes by explicit seed dispersal. Our forest models have been applied in
A recently developed forest packing model FPM follows a novel static approach focussing on the structure of forests. Thereby, tree crowns are randomly packed within a forest only competing for space. The simple model has so far been applied to forests in Panama and Sri Lanka. The forest packing model predicts the tree size distribution of forests as well as the spatial heterogenity of local forest structure.

Grasslands have been received increasing attention with the rise of several biodiversity experiments. In such experiments,
numerous ecosystem functions like productivity, carbon storage often increased as species-richness has been raised, but some
experimental sites also shows opposite effects.
If you are interested in using FORMIND, FORMIX or GRASSMIND, please contact us or visit www.formind.org for download requests.
Selected Publications
- Taubert, F., Fischer, R., Groeneveld, J., Lehmann, S., Müller, M.S., Rödig, E., Wiegand, T., Huth, A. (2018):
Global patterns of tropical forest fragmentation
Nature 554 (7693), 519 - 522
full text (doi) - Bohn, F.J., Huth, A. (2017):
The importance of forest structure to biodiversity–productivity relationships
R. Soc. Open Sci. 4 , art. 160521
full text (doi) - Brinck, K., Fischer, R., Groeneveld, J., Lehmann, S., Dantas de Paula, M., Pütz, S., Sexton, J.O., Song, D., Huth, A. (2017):
High resolution analysis of tropical forest fragmentation and its impact on the global carbon cycle
Nat. Commun. 8 , art. 14855
full text (doi) - Rödig, E., Cuntz, M., Heinke, J., Rammig, A., Huth, A. (2017):
Spatial heterogeneity of biomass and forest structure of the Amazon rain forest: Linking remote sensing, forest modelling and field inventory
Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr. 26 (11), 1292 - 1302
full text (doi) - Wiegand, T., May, F., Kazmierczak, M., Huth, A. (2017):
What drives the spatial distribution and dynamics of local species richness in tropical forest?
Proc. R. Soc. B-Biol. Sci. 284 (1863), art. 20171503
full text (doi) - Fischer, R., Bohn, F., Dantas de Paula, M., Dislich, C., Groeneveld, J., Gutiérrez, A.G., Kazmierczak, M., Knapp, N., Lehmann, S., Paulick, S., Pütz, S., Rödig, E., Taubert, F., Köhler, P., Huth, A. (2016):
Lessons learned from applying a forest gap model to understand ecosystem and carbon dynamics of complex tropical forests
Ecol. Model. 326 , 124 - 133
full text (doi) - Kazmierczak, M., Backmann, P., Fedriani, J.M., Fischer, R., Hartmann, A.K., Huth, A., May, F., Müller, M.S., Taubert, F., Grimm, V., Groeneveld, J. (2016):
Monodominance in tropical forests: modelling reveals emerging clusters and phase transitions
J. R. Soc. Interface 13 (117), art. 0123
full text (doi) - Lehmann, S., Huth, A. (2015):
Fast calibration of a dynamic vegetation model with minimum observation data
Ecol. Model. 301 , 98 - 105
full text (doi) - Taubert, F., Jahn, M.W., Dobner, H.-J., Wiegand, T., Huth, A. (2015):
The structure of tropical forests and sphere packings
Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 112 (49), 15125 - 15129
full text (doi)
Contact
Links
- FORMIND – the forest model
- ERC Advanced Investigator Grant - Towards a Unified Spatial Theory of Biodiversity
- Helmholtz Alliance “Remote Sensing and Earth System Dynamics”
- New spatial statistics to detect the role of different species in relation to biodiversity
- Carbon and Nitrogen Dynamics in Soil - the soil model Candy