Xiulin Gao published an exciting paper in New Phytologist that reported advances in modeling annual grassland dynamics. Using FATES, a vegetation demographic model, she showed that carbon, water and energy fluxes in California’s annual grasslands are sensitive to assumed grass allometry, but were more strongly influenced by leaf traits that influence plant phenology and physiology. Burned area was closely related to productivity. Her efforts to improve simulation of annual grasslands, which are abundant in Mediterranean-climate regions, and to examine how a more demographic approach can be used in this ecosystem type is a big step forward in regional and global ecosystem modeling.
Kueppers Lab Group 