Wetzstein, Germany

Wetzstein, Germany:
Linking Eddy-Covariance Data and FORMIND for a monocultural forest

Forests are important sources or sinks of atmospheric CO2. While carbon flux data from eddy covariance are commonly available in half-hourly time steps, forest gap models describe the exchange of carbon with the atmosphere on much larger time scales such as years in order to display slow succession processes.

Modelling the carbon fluxes for the spruce forest Wetzstein, Germany, is a first step within an integrated project between the Department Computational Hydrosystems and the Department of Ecological Modelling. The aim of the project is to find out how to use the meassured Eddy-Covariance data in our individual-based forest gap model FORMIND. A special focus lies on the functional relationships and parameter values that describe the effect of climate variables on productivity.

The spruce forest at the Wetzstein is a monoculture and therefore serves as a simple testcase. The FORMIND model uses functional relationships on an individual level, whereas the EC-method measures eco-physiological responses at the ecosystem level. However, we assume that in homogeneous stands as in our study, functional relationships for both methods are comparable. Once FORMIND was applied on the testcase Wetzstein, the model will be adopted to the complex environment of the Amazon, which has the largest carbon turnover globally.

Contact: Edna Rödig