Empirical-simulation method of landscape-ecological forecasting of forest geosystems in a changing climate
E.G. KOLOMYTS
Pushchino Scientific Center, Russian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Fundamental Problems of Biology, Pushchino, Russia
Keywords: climate changes, forest biogeocenoses, geoecological monitoring, polyzonality of biogeocenotic systems, ordination analysis, empirical simulation of a climate trend
Abstract
The article presents a strategy for empirical-statistical simulation modeling of the organization of forest biogeocenoses as initial objects of terrestrial geosystem monitoring. Spatial functional monitoring of forests is based on empirically established local and regional landscape-ecological relationships, which are considered as mechanisms of metabolic responses of forest geo(eco-)systems to certain climatic trends. This constitutes the novelty of the prognostic empirical-simulation concept of local (and regional) geoecological forecasting developed by the author. The property of polyzonality of local geo(eco-)systems as a way of their response to global climate changes was revealed. An ordination analysis of landscape relationships was carried out based on the main discrete parameters of the biological cycle. A local empirical simulation of the regional bioclimatic trend using the hydrothermoedaphic system of biogeocenoses was conducted, and patterns of transitions of forest communities into critical states were identified. The article describes catenary landscape-ecological structures that form regional systems of localized natural zonality, capable of simulating the main directions and scales of geosystemic restructurings. The landscape-ecological forecast itself is of an experimental nature. It is presented as a system of operations with ecological niches of the objects under study. In computational models, the course of predicted processes is reproduced using their empirical simulation by spatially distributed parameters of basic ecological niches. The basic principle of landscape-ecological forecasting has been formulated, corresponding to one of the provisions of general ecology, namely, the Gause’s law of competitive exclusion. Description of future states of biogeocenotic systems was carried out based on their current spatial organization in accordance with the fundamental properties of ergodicity of the natural environment. Certain time limitations of the empirical-simulation method of landscape-ecological forecasting are noted, and in order to avoid these limitations, it is recommended to use a more meaningful interpretation of the results of forecast calculations.
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