SIMULATION MODELS OF SHORT-ROTATION FORESTRY PRODUCTION AND COPPICE BIOLOGY

摘要

The main aim of this review is to assess the suitability of an existing model of fast growing trees to further understand coppiced tree growth and regrowth. A model for coppiced fast-growing trees should include processes such as demography, partitioning, senescence, and should deal with carbon, nitrogen and also water relations. A model at the individual tree level instead of the stand level might be considered to take into account these different processes. A demographic approach, non-existent in the actual models, seems to be necessary to simulate the coppice phenomenon as the number of buds, leaves and stems determines the success of regrowth of a coppiced tree. There are two types of processes of interest for modelling coppiced trees that were found in the existing models, namely partitioning and water relations. But further work should focus on these processes as well as in the below-ground processes, i.e., dynamics of root growth and nutrient and water uptake, and leaf area expansion dynamics. An overall problem in developing a model for coppicing should be to define the adapted level of resolution for modelling the processes because this choice might affect the general accuracy of the model. It is proposed that a model for coppiced fast-growing trees should be either created or developed from different models that contain the processes of interest.