Simulated tree recruitment at PA-BCI under four precipitation scenarios

Author(s): Hanbury-Brown A; Powell T; Muller-Landau H; Wright J; Kueppers L

Site ID: PA-BCI

Site Name: Barro Colorado Island (BCI)

Variables: Model output

Date Range: Jan. 1, 2008 - Dec. 31, 2014

Description: Simulated recruitment rates into the 1 cm diameter at breast height size class are provided for four tropical tree plant functional types (PFTs) which vary in drought and shade tolerance, at Barro Colorado Island, Panama (PA-BCI). Recruitment rates are predicted using the Tree Recruitment Scheme (TRS; Hanbury-Brown et al., 2022), with parameters tuned to BCI, and model data output from the Ecosystem Demography model version 2 with hydrodynamics (ED2; Medvigy et al., 2009, Powell et al., 2018). Predictions of tree recruitment are provided under four precipitation scenarios: “BASE” = recycled 2008-2014 observed meteorology (Faybishenko & Paton, 2021), “SYN-ENSO” = two exceptionally strong El Niño events within 30 years (Powell et al., 2018), “WET” = 30% increase in precipitation compared to BASE, and DRY-DS = dry season (January–April) precipitation reduced by 75% compared to BASE. The dataset contains five CSV files; one for each precipitation scenario and one containing metadata. In addition to recruitment rates, these data contain TRS predictions of PFT-specific seed bank and seedling pool dynamics (tracked in units of carbon) and ED2's predictions of understory photosynthetically active radiation and soil matric potential at 6 cm of soil depth. These data are intended to be used to understand how the environmentally sensitive regeneration processes represented by the TRS a) help Vegetation Demographic Models capture observed variation in recruitment among PFTs and b) influence predictions of PFT-specific tree recruitment under varying precipitation scenarios.

QA/QC: Full QA-QC

Methods Description: These data were produced using the Tree Recruitment Scheme (TRS; Hanbury-Brown et al., 2022) and model data output from the Ecosystem Demography model version 2 with hydrodynamics (ED2; Medvigy et al., 2009, Powell et al., 2018). The TRS is a module designed to operate within Vegetation Demographic Models and predicts tree recruitment rates as a function of size-dependent reproductive allocation, light and moisture sensitive seedling emergence, seedling mortality, and seedling to sapling transition rates. Model data output from ED2 (freely available at https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5498285) were used to run an offline version of the TRS, written in R, similar to a one-way coupled model setup. The version of the TRS source code and parameter files used to produce these model data output is freely available on github at https://github.com/adamhb/regeneration_submodel (commit #d66cf83). The parameter values used to define the four PFTs used in these simulations are derived from a wide range of empirical observations at Barro Colorado Island (see Hanbury-Brown et al., 2022 for details).

Access Level: Public

Originating Institution(s): University of California, Berkeley; Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; Smithsonian Research Institute

Sponsor Organization(s): None

Contact: Hanbury-Brown, Adam - University of California Berkeley (ahanburybrown@gmail.com)

Version: 1.0

Dataset Citation: Hanbury-Brown A; Powell T; Muller-Landau H; Wright J; Kueppers L (2022): Simulated tree recruitment at PA-BCI under four precipitation scenarios. 1.0. NGEE Tropics Data Collection. (dataset). http://dx.doi.org/10.15486/ngt/1855609

Acknowledgement: Hanbury-Brown, A.R., Powell, T.L., Muller-Landau, H.C., Wright, S.J. and Kueppers, L.M. (2022), Simulating environmentally-sensitive tree recruitment in vegetation demographic models. New Phytol. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.18059

Data Link: Download Dataset

Powell TL, Koven CD, Johnson DJ, Faybishenko B, Fisher RA, Knox RG, McDowell NG, Condit R, Hubbell SP, Wright SJ, et al. 2018. Variation in hydroclimate sustains tropical forest biomass and promotes functional diversity. New Phytologist 219: 932–946. https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.15271

Powell T, Kueppers L, Paton S. 2017. Seven years (2008-2014) of meteorological observations plus a synthetic El Nino drought for BCI Panama. doi: 10.15486/ngt/1414275. [accessed 16 February 2022].

Boris Faybishenko, Steve Paton(2021). PA-BCI Meteorological dataset 1985-2018. NGEE Tropics Data Collection. Accessed at http://dx.doi.org/10.15486/ngt/1771850.

Medvigy D, Wofsy SC, Munger JW, Hollinger DY, Moorcroft PR. 2009. Mechanistic scaling of ecosystem function and dynamics in space and time: Ecosystem Demography model version 2. Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences 114: 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1029/2008JG000812