A Systems Analysis of the Global Boreal Forest

by Edited by Herman H. Shugart , Rik Leemans , Gordon B. Bonan

• ISBN13: 9780521619738
• ISBN10: 0521619734
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-03-07
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

The boreal forests of the world, geographically situated to the south of the Arctic and generally north of latitude 50 degrees, are considered to be one of the earth's most significant terrestrial ecosystems in terms of their potential for interaction with other global scale systems, such as climate and anthropologenic activity. This book, developed by an international panel of ecologists, provides a synthesis of the important patterns and processes which occur in boreal forests and reviews the principal mechanisms which control the forests' pattern in space and time. The effects of cold temperatures, soil ice, insects, plant competition, wildfires and climatic change on the boreal forests are discussed as a basis for the development of the first global scale computer model of the dynamical change of a biome, able to project the change of the boreal forest over timescales of decades to millennia, and over the global extent of this forest.

Table of Contents

List of contributors	ix
1 Introduction	1	(8)
Herman H. Shugart, Rik Leemans and Gordon B. Bonan
Part 1 Processes in boreal forests
Gordon B. Bonan	9	(183)
2 Silvics of the circumpolar boreal forest tree species	13	(72)
Nedialko Nikolov and Harry Helmisaari
3 The reproductive process in boreal forest trees	85	(41)
John C. Zasada, Terry L. Sharik and Markku Nygren
4 Soil temperature as an ecological factor in boreal forests	126	(18)
Gordon B. Bonan
5 Fire as a controlling process in the North American boreal forest	144	(26)
Serge Payette
6 The role of forest insects in structuring the boreal landscape	170	(26)
C.S. Holling
Part 2 Patterns in space and time in boreal forests	192	(116)
Herman H. Shugart
7 The transition between boreal forest and tundra	196	(20)
Luc Sirois
8 The southern boreal-northern hardwood forest border	216	(25)
John Pastor and David J. Mladenoff
9 Transitions between boreal forest and wetland	241	(26)
F.Z. Glebov and M.D. Korzukhin
10 Remote sensing technology for forest ecosystem analysis	267	(24)
K. Jon Ranson and Darrel L. Williams
11 The nature and distribution of past, present and future boreal forests: lessons for a research and modeling agenda	291	(17)
Allen M. Solomon
Part 3 Computer models for synthesis of pattern and process in the boreal forest
Rik Leemans	308	(163)
12 Individual-tree-based models of forest dynamics and their application in global change research	313	(21)
Herman H. Shugart and I. Colin Prentice
13 Population-level models of forest dynamics	334	(39)
M.D. Korzukhin and M. Ya. Antonovski
14 A spatial model of long-term forest fire dynamics and its applications to forests in western Siberia	373	(31)
M. Ya. Antonovski, M.T. Ter-Mikaelian and V.V. Furyaev
15 A simulation analysis of environmental factors and ecological processes in North American boreal forests	404	(24)
Gordon B. Bonan
16 The biological component of the simulation model for boreal forest dynamics	428	(18)
Rik Leemans
17 Role of stand simulation in modeling forest response to environmental change and management interventions	446	(20)
Peter Duinker, Ola Salinäs and Sten Nilsson
18 Concluding comments	466	(5)
Herman H. Shugart, Rik Leemans and Gordon B. Bonan
References	471	(74)
Index	545