Journal article
A physiological analogy of the niche for projecting the potential distribution of plants
SI Higgins, RB O'Hara, O Bykova, MD Cramer, I Chuine, EM Gerstner, T Hickler, X Morin, MR Kearney, GF Midgley, S Scheiter
Journal of Biogeography | Published : 2012
Abstract
Aim To develop a physiologically based model of the plant niche for use in species distribution modelling. Location Europe. Methods We link the Thornley transport resistance (TTR) model with functions which describe how the TTR's model parameters are influenced by abiotic environmental factors. The TTR model considers how carbon and nutrient uptake, and the allocation of these assimilates, influence growth. We use indirect statistical methods to estimate the model parameters from a high resolution data set on tree distribution for 22 European tree species. Results We infer, from distribution data and abiotic forcing data, the physiological niche dimensions of 22 European tree species. We fou..
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Awarded by DFG
Funding Acknowledgements
We thank the three referees and Peter Linder for very helpful comments on earlier versions of this manuscript. We acknowledge the Cloud Computing resources of the Forschungsgemeinschaft Frankfurt as well as the financial support of the DFG project RO 3842/1-1 and the Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F), which is part of the LOEWE programme 'Landes-Offensive zur Entwicklung Wissenschaftlich-okonomischer Exzellenz' of Hesse's Ministry of Higher Education, Research and the Arts.