Does maximization of net carbon profit enable the prediction of vegetation behaviour in savanna sites along a precipitation gradient?

Nijzink, Remko C.; Beringer, Jason; Hutley, Lindsay B.; Schymanski, Stanislaus J.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-525-2022

Articles | Volume 26, issue 2

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-525-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-525-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 26, issue 2

Research article

|

01 Feb 2022

Research article |

| 01 Feb 2022

Does maximization of net carbon profit enable the prediction of vegetation behaviour in savanna sites along a precipitation gradient?

Remko C. Nijzink, Jason Beringer, Lindsay B. Hutley, and Stanislaus J. Schymanski

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/hess-26-525-2022-supplement

Model code and software

schymans/VOM: Code used for 2020 paper on the NATT (v0.5) R. C. Nijzink and S. J. Schymanski https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3630081

VOMcases (v0.3) R. C. Nijzink and S. J. Schymanski https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5789101

VOM S. Schymanski https://github.com/schymans/VOM

VOMcases R. C. Nijzink https://renkulab.io/gitlab/remko.nijzink/vomcases

Short summary

Most models that simulate water and carbon exchanges with the atmosphere rely on information about vegetation, but optimality models predict vegetation properties based on general principles. Here, we use the Vegetation Optimality Model (VOM) to predict vegetation behaviour at five savanna sites. The VOM overpredicted vegetation cover and carbon uptake during the wet seasons but also performed similarly to conventional models, showing that vegetation optimality is a promising approach.