Ecosystem Demography Model: Scaling Vegetation Dynamics Across South America

The model output data are estimates of potential average live biomass (kg C/m2), potential average soil carbon (kg C/m2), and potential above-ground net primary production (NPP) (kg C/m2/yr) at 1.0 degree resolution. To produce these estimates, ED was forced with ISLSCP I data for 1987 and 1988, averaged into a single year (Moorcroft et al., 2001).

Data for the three estimates are provided in both ASCII text and in NetCDF formatted files. ED is an individual-based terrestrial ecosystem model that predicts both ecosystem structure (e.g. above and below-ground biomass, vegetation height and basal area, and soil carbon stocks) and corresponding ecosystem fluxes (e.g. NPP, NEP and evapotranspiration) from climate, soil, and land-use inputs. The model consists of integrated sub-models governing processes such as leaf-level physiology, plant allocation, allometry, phenology, dispersal, the effects of fire disturbances, and below-ground sub-models for soil carbon dynamics and hydrology.