The role of plant functional diversity in productivity and soil organic carbon stocks of managed grasslands : Advancements using a dynamic global vegetation model

Managed grasslands occupy a substantial share of the terrestrial area across different climates and contribute to many people’s livelihoods and food security through ruminant meat and dairy production. The productivity — and in turn the livestock carrying capacity — of managed grasslands depends on climatic conditions and management and plant functional diversity. While plant functional diversity is shaped by climatic conditions and management, it also plays a direct role in the productivity of managed grasslands. While functional diversity has been incorporated into computer models at small spatial scales, at the global scale such a representation has been missing. However, global-scale models such as dynamic global vegetation models (DGVMs) are widely used to assess the impacts of climate change on vegetation, and enabling DGVMs to simulate the role of functional diversity is crucial for improving projections of ecosystem services. Therefore, the main objectives of this thesis were to: (1) identify important areas of model development needed to represent functional diversity in managed grasslands in DGVMs, (2) implement the necessary changes and (3) to assess the role of functional diversity in grassland productivity and soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks at the local and global scale and under climate change. This thesis introduces a novel approach to simulate the functional diversity of managed grasslands in DGVMs, which is crucial for improving projections of managed grassland ecosystem services under climate change. The results demonstrate that functional diversity contributes to managed grassland productivity and SOC stocks. While field experiments have already established this relationship, simulating the role of functional diversity at a global scale offers a new perspective for disentangling the complex interactions between climatic conditions, management and functional diversity in managed grasslands.

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