Biomass estimates of the Amazon rainforest
Tropical forests are characterized by their high biodiversity and successional dynamics caused by natural disturbances. These can be captured well on small spatial scales with individual-based forest models. Often important information on forest structures get lost when processes are upscaled to larger regionas such as the whole Amazon rainforest. We regionalize an individual-based forest gap model without losing such important structural information and can thereby estimate spatial differences of biomass across the Amazon tropical forest.
We adapted the individual-based forest gap model FORMIND to several tropical forest sites in central Amazon in order to reproduce productivity, forest structure and biomass of different successional stages. We spatially adapted the mortality parameters of early, mid and late successional trees to replicate data from field studies spread over the entire Amazonian rainforest: specific wood density and above-ground biomass. This resulted in the regionalized forest model FORMINDalized. The results of the regionalized forest model were related to remote sensing data. This enables to analyze productivity of the Amazonian at different successional stages.
Contact: Edna Rödig