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iLand is a model of forest landscape dynamics, simulating individual tree competition, growth, mortality, and regeneration. It addresses interactions between climate (change), disturbance regimes, vegetation dynamics, and forest management/simulation model of forest ecosystem dynamics at landscape scales, the individual-based forest landscape and disturbance model iLand.
iLand is conceived as a process-based model of the primary demographic processes in forest ecosystems, i.e. growth, mortality, and regeneration of trees. Seed dispersal in the landscape is simulated spatially explicit, and, in conjunction with a phenology-based establishment model, determines tree regeneration and species distribution. Productivity is derived at stand-level by means of a light-use efficiency approach, and downscaled to individuals via local light availability, accounting for adaptive behavior of trees in response to their environment. Individual tree mortality is modeled based on carbon starvation, while spatially explicit modules of disturbance agents (wind, bark beetles, wildfire) can be deployed to simulate large-scale mortality events. The model thus harnesses approaches from community ecology, ecosystem ecology, and landscape ecology to address current questions of ecosystem stewardship and resilience. In addition, iLand integrates an agent-based model of forest management in order to dynamically address the interactions between forests and managers as coupled human and natural systems.
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