PARENT SESSION
Oral Session #33: Climate Change. Presiding: A. Peterson.
Tuesday, August 7, 2001. 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM. Hall of Ideas E.
Spatial simulation of Lake States forest landscape change: climate warming, disturbance change, and management .
Mladenoff, David1, He, Hong1,2, Scheller, Robert 1, Crow, Thomas3, 1 2 3
ABSTRACT- Past simulation of forest change due to climate warming has largely been non-spatial, and has not typically included natural disturbance or forest cutting. Over several years we have built a model, LANDIS, that accomplishes these goals, at scales up to 1000s km2. Our previous results have addressed these dynamics separately or on small landscapes. Here we simulated NW Wisconsin under current and changed climate, interacting with current and changed fire, wind, and harvesting. Spatial simulation of these dynamics and resulting species migration into and out of the region show not only that some species will be lost and others gained, but how the rates of change are influenced by the interaction of human use and natural disturbance, as constrained by projected climate changes. results suggest that past, non-spatial simulations do not accurately portray the varied rates of species changes. We suggest that the results aslo show how management and expected forest use may need to change in the near future.
KEY WORDS: spatial, modeling, temperate, forest