Influence of climate variability, fire and phosphorus limitation on vegetation structure and dynamics of the Amazon–Cerrado border

Dionizio, Emily Ane; Heil Costa, Marcos; Castanho, Andrea D. de Almeida; Ferreira Pires, Gabrielle; Schwantes Marimon, Beatriz; Hur Marimon-Junior, Ben; Lenza, Eddie; Martins Pimenta, Fernando; Yang, Xiaojuan; Jain, Atul K.

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-919-2018

Articles | Volume 15, issue 3

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-919-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-15-919-2018

© Author(s) 2018. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Articles | Volume 15, issue 3

Research article

|

15 Feb 2018

Research article |

| 15 Feb 2018

Influence of climate variability, fire and phosphorus limitation on vegetation structure and dynamics of the Amazon–Cerrado border

Emily Ane Dionizio, Marcos Heil Costa, Andrea D. de Almeida Castanho, Gabrielle Ferreira Pires, Beatriz Schwantes Marimon, Ben Hur Marimon-Junior, Eddie Lenza, Fernando Martins Pimenta, Xiaojuan Yang, and Atul K. Jain

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Final revised paper (published on 15 Feb 2018)
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Preprint (discussion started on 12 May 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

RC1: 'Review da Silva et al 2017 Biogeosciences Disc', Anonymous Referee #1, 11 Jul 2017
- AC1: 'Response for "RC1"', Emily Ane Dionizio da Silva, 31 Jul 2017
RC2: 'Recommendations and Doubts', Anonymous Referee #2, 23 Jul 2017
- AC3: 'Response for RC2', Emily Ane Dionizio da Silva, 02 Aug 2017
RC3: 'comments on hg-2017-149', Anonymous Referee #3, 25 Jul 2017
- AC2: 'Response for "RC3"', Emily Ane Dionizio da Silva, 31 Jul 2017

Peer-review completion

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

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

AR by Emily Ane Dionizio on behalf of the Authors (14 Sep 2017) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Referee Nomination & Report Request started (27 Sep 2017) by Anja Rammig

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (03 Oct 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

General Comments:
Revision: The revision has addressed many concerns and comments, but there are still changes to be made prior to publication.

Detailed comments:
Add reference for Goll et al 2012

Page 30 line 781-783: Provide a better description of how pools are effected by fire. Arora and Boer do not use the term “penalization fraction”, and this term is not clear.

Page 38 line 985-986: Update sentence to “responsible for altering the simulated AGB to approach the observed AGB”. Current sentence structure is unclear.

Page 42 line 1092-1094: Update sentence to “showed significant spatial differences”.

Page 43 line 1109-1112: Update to “vegetation-fire dynamics are mainly controlled”

Page 43 line 1109-1115: This section needs to be re-written to clearly present how fire effects AGB. Remove the comparison to the work of Hoffman. Arora and Boer clearly describe fire-related mortality with specific reference to tropical burning. Summarize this here. Specifically, does INLAND use the same combustion factors for stem, leaf, and root biomass discussed in Arora and Boer? (To quote Arora and Boer: “The stem wood combustion factor for tropical drought deciduous trees at 0.10 is smaller than that for other PFTs since these trees are characterized by bark that is 3 times thicker than other trees [Hoffmann et al., 2003] which makes them well-adapted for fire-prone savanna regions.”)

Page 44 line 1179-1183: This should be connected to the above paragraph, or include more discussion. Update to “fire effect implies significant increases” and “resulting in an increase of LAIlower”

Page 44 line 1184: Remove double negative. Update to “model does not include characteristics related to”

Page 44 line 1186: Remove double negative. Update to “or the representation of some”

Page 45 line 1243: Tree structure would vary temporally rather than spatially. It should be highlighted as an area for improvement, but not in a context of spatial variability.

Page 48 line 1362: Update to “There is evidence that…”

Page 49 line 1370-1371: Update to “With the help of these data, dynamic vegetation models will be able to improve simulation of current…”

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RR by Anonymous Referee #2 (08 Oct 2017)

ED: Reconsider after major revisions (10 Oct 2017) by Anja Rammig

AR by Emily Ane Dionizio on behalf of the Authors (30 Oct 2017) Author's response Manuscript

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

RR by Anonymous Referee #1 (10 Dec 2017)

Suggestions for revision or reasons for rejection

Title: Influence of climate variability, fire and phosphorus limitation of the vegetation structure and dynamics in the Amazon-Cerrado border

Authors: Emily Ane Dionizio da Silva, Marcos Heil Costa, Andrea Almeida Castanho, Gabrielle Ferreira Pires, Beatriz Schwantes Marimon, Ben Hur Marimon-Junior, Eddie Lenza, Fernando Martins Pimenta, Xiaojuan Yang, Atul K. Jain

General Comments:
Revision: The revision comments here are mainly associated with language and wording.

Detailed comments:
Abstract: line 25-26: Update phrase “gradually improve simulated vegetation types” What is meant by “improve” vegetation?

Page 3 line 40-42: Update “physiognomies” and “woodland formations” to something more clearly descriptive of vegetation.

Page 3 line 42-44: Update to “ecotonal vegetation around this transition includes a mix of tropical forest and savanna species.”

Page 6 line 115: Update to “INLAND is a revision of the IBIS model”

Page 7 line 117-119: Update to “We used the version described by Senna et al. (2009) as the starting point for INLAND without changes in tuning, aside from the addition of P parameterization, described below.”

Page 7 line 131: Update to “based on a drought phenology scheme”

Page 8 line 152-153: Include a basic description of Cerrado and Camp sujo. Some papers describe cerrado as “savanna woodland with 10-60% tree cover”.

Page 15 line 293: Update to “is much higher in magnitude than due to P”

Page 15 line 294-297: Split this into two sentences.

Page 18 line 344: Update to “cover in the last 10 years of simulation”

Page 18 line 350: Update to “deciduous forest with evergreen forest”

Page 18 line 360: Update to “PFTs each have a very high LAI”

Page 18 line 361: Explain what is meant by “minor effects” determining dominance, or delete this phrase.

Page 18 line 362: Update to “fire results in the replacement”

Page 18 line 363: Update to “grasses in the entire central Cerrrado region”

Page 19 line 364: Update to: “the importance of considering the interannual climate”

Page 19 line 369-370: Update to “indicating difficulty in simulating transitional vegetation in these regions”

Page 22 line 449: Should “according to fire probability” be updated to fire occurence or size? How does the fraction of reduction relate to fire? Is there a fuels component?

Page 23 line 447-453: Suggest moving this section (Sentence beginning “In INLAND, fire…”) to Section 2.2, and include one sentence to remind reader of these details. (As stated in section 2.2, fire acts on upper and lower LAI according to fire intensity, triggering competition.)

Page 23 line 458-462: In 458 you state that “the model does not include …fire intensity…” but then state that trees and grasses “are equally exposed to the same fire intensity” Update this so that these statements are consistent. Update line 462 to state what aspect of fire is modifying PFTs.

Page 24 line 475-480: “…other important factors are still needed…” improved representation of fire and vegetation fire resistance would also improve these results.

Page 24 line 482: Update “for modeling are peculiar” to “for modeling the transition area are unique.”

Page 25 line 492: Update to “and P have a smaller influence”

Page 25 line 496: Replace “phytophysiognomies distribution” to “vegetation structure and distribution”

Page 26 line 514: Update to “ indicating that INLAND has difficulty representing the ABG…”

Page 26 line 516: Suggest updating “physiognomies” to “vegetation characteristics” or “vegetation types”

Page 26 line 522: Update to “Amazon-Cerrado border are influenced not only”

Page 28 line 553: Update to “lack of measured field parameters”

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ED: Publish subject to minor revisions (review by editor) (20 Dec 2017) by Anja Rammig

AR by Emily Ane Dionizio on behalf of the Authors (02 Jan 2018) Author's response Manuscript

ED: Publish as is (03 Jan 2018) by Anja Rammig

AR by Emily Ane Dionizio on behalf of the Authors (08 Jan 2018)

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Short summary

Using a dynamic vegetation model, we demonstrate that fire occurrence is the main determinant factor of vegetation changes along the Amazon–Cerrado border, followed by nutrient limitation and interannual climate variability. Although we simulated more than 80 % of the variability of biomass in the transition zone, in many places the simulated biomass clearly does not match observations. The accurate representation of the transition is important for understanding the savannization of the Amazon.