Implementation of a Marauding Insect Module (MIM, version 1.0) in the Integrated BIosphere Simulator (IBIS, version 2.6b4) dynamic vegetation–land surface model
Insects defoliate and kill plants in many ecosystems worldwide. The consequences of these natural processes on terrestrial ecology and nutrient cycling are well established, and their potential climatic effects resulting from modified land–atmosphere exchanges of carbon, energy, and water are increa...
| Main Authors: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Copernicus Publications
2016-04-01
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| Series: | Geoscientific Model Development |
| Online Access: | http://www.geosci-model-dev.net/9/1243/2016/gmd-9-1243-2016.pdf |
| Summary: | Insects defoliate and kill plants in many ecosystems worldwide. The
consequences of these natural processes on terrestrial ecology and nutrient
cycling are well established, and their potential climatic effects resulting
from modified land–atmosphere exchanges of carbon, energy, and water are
increasingly being recognized. We developed a Marauding Insect Module (MIM)
to quantify, in the Integrated BIosphere Simulator (IBIS), the consequences
of insect activity on biogeochemical and biogeophysical fluxes, also
accounting for the effects of altered vegetation dynamics. MIM can simulate
damage from three different insect functional types: (1) defoliators on
broadleaf deciduous trees, (2) defoliators on needleleaf evergreen trees, and
(3) bark beetles on needleleaf evergreen trees, with the resulting impacts
being estimated by IBIS based on the new, insect-modified state of the
vegetation. MIM further accounts for the physical presence and gradual fall
of insect-killed dead standing trees. The design of MIM should facilitate the
addition of other insect types besides the ones already included and could
guide the development of similar modules for other process-based vegetation
models. After describing IBIS–MIM, we illustrate the usefulness of the model
by presenting results spanning daily to centennial timescales for vegetation
dynamics and cycling of carbon, energy, and water in a simplified setting and
for bark beetles only. More precisely, we simulated 100 % mortality
events from the mountain pine beetle for three locations in western Canada.
We then show that these simulated impacts agree with many previous studies
based on field measurements, satellite data, or modelling. MIM and similar
tools should therefore be of great value in assessing the wide array of
impacts resulting from insect-induced plant damage in the Earth system. |
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| ISSN: | 1991-959X 1991-9603 |