| The Amazon is the largest tropical rainforest in the world, and thus plays a major role on global water, energy, and carbon cycles. However, it is still unknown how the Amazon forest will respond to the ongoing changes in climate, especially droughts, which are expected to become more frequent. To help answering this question, in this thesis I developed and improved the representation of biophysical processes and photosynthesis in the Ecosystem Demography model (ED-2.2), an individual-based land ecosystem model. I also evaluated the model biophysics against multiple data sets for multiple forest and savannah sites in tropical South America. Results of this comparison showed that ED-2.2 is able to represent the radiation and water cycles, but exaggerates heterotrophic respiration seasonality. Also, the model generally predicted correct distribution of biomass across different areas, although it overestimated biomass in subtropical savannahs. To evaluate the forest resilience to droughts, I used ED-2.2 to simulate the plant community dynamics at two sites in Eastern Amazonia, and developed scenarios by resampling observed annual rainfall but increasing the probability of selecting dry years. While the model predicted little response at French Guiana, results at the mid-Eastern Amazonia site indicated substantial biomass loss at modest rainfall reductions. Also, the response to drier climate varied within the plant community, with evergreen, early-successional, and larger trees being the most susceptible. The model also suggests that competition for water during prolonged periods of drought caused the largest impact on larger trees, when insufficient wet season rainfall did not recharge deeper soil layers. Finally, results suggested that a decrease in return period of long-lasting droughts could prevent ecosystem recovery. Using different rainfall datasets, I defined vulnerability based on the change in climate needed to reduce the return period of long droughts. The most vulnerable areas would be near Southeastern edge, a large band in mid-Eastern Amazonia, Western and Northern Bolivia and areas in Eastern Peru, whereas areas in mid-Southern Amazonia could be surprisingly resilient. |
