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JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH,
VOL. 112,
G01024,
15 PP., 2007
doi:10.1029/2006JG000252
Estimating global distribution of boreal, temperate, and tropical tree plant functional types using clustering techniques
Department of Renewable Resources, University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
Natural Resources Canada, Northern Forestry Centre, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
A simple integrated algorithm was developed to relate global climatology to distributions of tree plant functional types (PFT). Multivariate cluster analysis was performed to analyze the statistical homogeneity of the climate space occupied by individual tree PFTs. Forested regions identified from the satellite-based GLC2000 classification were separated into tropical, temperate, and boreal sub-PFTs for use in the Canadian Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (CTEM). Global data sets of monthly minimum temperature, growing degree days, an index of climatic moisture, and estimated PFT cover fractions were then used as variables in the cluster analysis. The statistical results for individual PFT clusters were found consistent with other global-scale classifications of dominant vegetation. As an improvement of the quantification of the climatic limitations on PFT distributions, the results also demonstrated overlapping of PFT cluster boundaries that reflected vegetation transitions, for example, between tropical and temperate biomes. The resulting global database should provide a better basis for simulating the interaction of climate change and terrestrial ecosystem dynamics using global vegetation models.
Received 22 June 2006; accepted 22 December 2006; published 30 March 2007.
Citation: (2007), Estimating global distribution of boreal, temperate, and tropical tree plant functional types using clustering techniques, J. Geophys. Res., 112, G01024, doi:10.1029/2006JG000252.
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