Ecophysiological modeling of photosynthesis and carbon allocation to the tree stem in the boreal forest

Gennaretti, Fabio; Gea-Izquierdo, Guillermo; Boucher, Etienne; Berninger, Frank; Arseneault, Dominique; Guiot, Joel

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-14-4851-2017

Articles | Volume 14, issue 21

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-14-4851-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-14-4851-2017

© Author(s) 2017. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 14, issue 21

Research article

|

06 Nov 2017

Research article |

| 06 Nov 2017

Ecophysiological modeling of photosynthesis and carbon allocation to the tree stem in the boreal forest

Fabio Gennaretti, Guillermo Gea-Izquierdo, Etienne Boucher, Frank Berninger, Dominique Arseneault, and Joel Guiot

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Final revised paper (published on 06 Nov 2017)
Supplement to the final revised paper
Preprint (discussion started on 23 Feb 2017)
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Interactive discussion

Status: closed

AC: Author comment | RC: Referee comment | SC: Short comment | EC: Editor comment

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- Supplement

SC1: 'comments on "Ecophysiological modeling of the climate imprint..."', Michael W. I. Schmidt, 29 Mar 2017
RC1: 'Comments', Anonymous Referee #1, 19 May 2017
- AC2: 'Author answer', Fabio Gennaretti, 29 Jun 2017
RC2: 'Interactive comment on “Ecophysiological modeling of the climate imprint on photosynthesis and carbon allocation to the tree stem in the North American boreal forest” by Fabio Gennaretti et al.', Anonymous Referee #2, 25 May 2017
- AC3: 'Author answer', Fabio Gennaretti, 29 Jun 2017
AC1: 'Author comments', Fabio Gennaretti, 29 Jun 2017

Peer-review completion

AR: Author's response | RR: Referee report | ED: Editor decision

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (17 Jul 2017) by Anja Rammig

AR by Fabio Gennaretti on behalf of the Authors (18 Jul 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (19 Jul 2017) by Anja Rammig

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (07 Aug 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

The authors are commended on a thorough and satisfactory response to
comments brought up in review of the first revision. I recommend
acceptance with minor revisions as follows:

1. Comment 18: I still think it highly desirable to separate Results
(what was found) from Discussion (how the authors interpret the
results in support of their argument). At the very least (at the
Editor's discretion), please check the structure of each subsection
for this clear separation. For example, the first paragraph could
clearly be Results and the second paragraph is clearly Discussion of
those results. That will clarify these elements for the reader.

2. For a model validation study such as this, it is also valuable to
make testable predictions or forecasts. It would be good to collect
these predictions (for instance, of the applicability of the model to
predictions of forest growth and allocation dynamics in other boreal
forests; for the prediction of the response of the studied boreal
forest growth and allocation dynamics under past or future
environmental change) into one subsection that is clearly Discussion.
This might include the Bayesian estimation of parameters, and here Fig
S5, S9 would be useful results to discuss. For example, some
parameters appear bimodal with all data but become unimodal with
subsets; others show the reverse phenomenon. Why do the authors think
this is, and do the uncertainties in the posterior parameter pdfs
themselves affect their interpretations? (e.g. Fig S8)

3. The discussion of testable predictions would highlight another
important element that belongs in the new section 3.4. This is the
extent to which the model structure might be overly tuned to the
simulation of the target with the multiple fixed parameters described
in 2.1.2. This should be discussed in general terms: identify the
potential problem and then allow for the possibility of their
estimation rather than specification. Of course this would require
more tuning and more input data, but this is the price we pay for
model complexity.

4. Please review the revised/new text, including table and figure
captions, for grammar; e.g. "Warmer temperature corresponded to a
greater portion of carbon allocated to the stem and less to
non-structural carbohydrates (Fig. 8a-b), being the simulations highly
sensitive to the st4temp parameter (Fig. 8c-d)." --> "Warmer
temperatures corresponded to a greater amount of carbon allocated to
the stem and less to non-structural carbohydrates (Fig. 8a-b), because
the simulations are highly sensitive to the ..."

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ED: Reconsider after major revisions (09 Aug 2017) by Anja Rammig

AR by Fabio Gennaretti on behalf of the Authors (25 Aug 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (Editor review) (08 Sep 2017) by Anja Rammig

AR by Fabio Gennaretti on behalf of the Authors (19 Sep 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (27 Sep 2017) by Anja Rammig

AR by Fabio Gennaretti on behalf of the Authors (28 Sep 2017) Manuscript

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Short summary

A model–data fusion approach is used to study how boreal forests assimilate and allocate carbon depending on weather/climate conditions. First, we adapted the MAIDEN ecophysiological forest model to consider important processes for boreal tree species. We tested the modifications on black spruce gross primary production and ring width data. We show that MAIDEN is a powerful tool for understanding how environmental factors interact with tree ecophysiology to influence boreal forest carbon fluxes.