Capacidade de regeneração da floresta tropical amazônica sob deficiência nutricional: resultados de um estudo numérico da interação biosfera-atmosfera

TL;DR: This thesis investigates how the climate feedback and the nutrient feedback interact to regulate the patterns in the regrowth of the Amazon tropical forest after a large-scale deforestation.

Abstract: SENNA, Mônica Carneiro Alves, D.Sc., Federal University of Viçosa, April 2008. Amazon rainforest regrowth under nutrient stress: results from a biosphere-atmosphere interaction numerical study. Adviser: Marcos Heil Costa. Co-Advisers: Carlos Afonso Nobre and Luiz Cláudio Costa. This thesis investigates how the climate feedback and the nutrient feedback interact to regulate the patterns in the regrowth of the Amazon tropical forest after a large-scale deforestation. The study is performed using the fully coupled biosphere-atmosphere model CCM3-IBIS. Initially, the model was validated against observed climate and vegetation dynamics and structure variables. The Amazon climate (annual mean and seasonality) is extremely well simulated for both precipitation and incident solar radiation. Vegetation cover patterns reproduce well the observed patterns. The simulated net primary production and respiration rates are within 5% and 16% of observed data, respectively. The performance of simulated variables that depend on carbon allocation, like net primary production partitioning, leaf area index and biomass, although good on a regional mean, is low when spatial patterns are considered. A better representation of these spatial patterns depends on the understanding of the spatial variation in carbon allocation and its relationship to environmental factors. To evaluate