Florian Hartig Theoretical Ecology & Ecological Data Science

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Tree mortality submodels drive simulated long-term forest dynamics: assessing 15 models from the stand to global scale

Harald Bugmann, Rupert Seidl, Florian Hartig, Friedrich Bohn, Josef Brůna, Maxime Cailleret, Louis François, Jens Heinke, Alexandra-Jane Henrot, Thomas Hickler, Lisa Hülsmann, Andreas Huth, Ingrid Jacquemin, Chris Kollas, Petra Lasch-Born, Manfred J. Lexer, Ján Merganič, Katarína Merganičová, Tobias Mette, Brian R. Miranda, Daniel Nadal-Sala, Werner Rammer, Anja Rammig, Björn Reineking, Edna Roedig, Santi Sabaté, Jörg Steinkamp, Felicitas Suckow, Giorgio Vacchiano, Jan Wild, Chonggang Xu, Christopher P. O. Reyer

Ecosphere, 10(2), e02616 (2019)
Cite this
@article{bugmann2019tree,
  author = {Harald Bugmann and Rupert Seidl and Florian Hartig and Friedrich Bohn and Josef Brůna and Maxime Cailleret and Louis François and Jens Heinke and Alexandra-Jane Henrot and Thomas Hickler and Lisa Hülsmann and Andreas Huth and Ingrid Jacquemin and Chris Kollas and Petra Lasch-Born and Manfred J. Lexer and Ján Merganič and Katarína Merganičová and Tobias Mette and Brian R. Miranda and Daniel Nadal-Sala and Werner Rammer and Anja Rammig and Björn Reineking and Edna Roedig and Santi Sabaté and Jörg Steinkamp and Felicitas Suckow and Giorgio Vacchiano and Jan Wild and Chonggang Xu and Christopher P. O. Reyer},
  title = {Tree mortality submodels drive simulated long-term forest dynamics: assessing 15 models from the stand to global scale},
  journal = {Ecosphere},
  volume = {10},
  number = {2},
  pages = {e02616},
  year = {2019},
  doi = {10.1002/ecs2.2616},
}

DOI: 10.1002/ecs2.2616
Cited by 171 (Google Scholar) · 195 (OpenAlex), as of 07 September 2026

View article (DOI)

Abstract

Models are pivotal for assessing future forest dynamics under the impacts of changing climate and management practices, incorporating representations of tree growth, mortality, and regeneration, yet quantitative studies on the importance of mortality submodels are scarce. We evaluated 15 dynamic vegetation models (DVMs) regarding their sensitivity to different formulations of tree mortality under different degrees of climate change. The set of models comprised eight DVMs at the stand scale, three at the landscape scale, and four typically applied at the continental to global scale; each was run with at least two alternative mortality submodels, evaluated against empirical time series data and then subjected to different scenarios of climate change. Most DVMs matched empirical data quite well irrespective of the mortality submodel used, but mortality submodels that performed in a very similar manner against past data often led to sharply different trajectories of forest dynamics under future climate change. Most DVMs featured high sensitivity to the mortality submodel, with deviations of basal area and stem numbers on the order of 10-40% per century under current climate and 20-170% under climate change; the sensitivity of a given DVM to scenarios of climate change, however, was typically lower by a factor of two to three. We conclude that mortality is one of the most uncertain processes when it comes to assessing forest response to climate change, and that more data and a better process understanding of tree mortality are needed to improve the robustness of simulated future forest dynamics.

What the paper shows and why it matters (AI-generated)

Fifteen forest models spanning stand to global scale were each run with at least two alternative tree-mortality submodels that fit historical data about equally well — and then diverged sharply, by up to 170% in stem numbers and basal area, once projected under future climate change. That's a specific, quantified warning that agreement on the past is no guarantee of agreement on the future when the underlying process — tree mortality — is this uncertain, a conclusion the authors' own later work (recalibrating mortality for ForClim, reviewing model uncertainty more broadly) has been chasing down ever since.