CENTURY biogeochemistry model

FIGURE 10 The relationships between evapotranspiration and net primary production as they emerge from the Century model, applied globally. The near-linear realtionship between evaporation and NPP, very similar to those observed In semi-arid lands, is an emergent property. The differences in slope between biomes are largely due to differences in the C N ratio of different plant functional types. Indicating that ecosystem composition has direct effects on biogeochemistry (Scholes et al., 1999). 

Raich, J.W., Parton, W.J., Russell, A.E., Sanford, R.L. and Vitousek, P.M. (2000) Analysis of factors regulating ecosystem development on Mauna Loa using the Century model. Biogeochemistry 51, 151-191. 

A central and long-standing conundrum of tropical biogeochemistry is the existence of high rates of terrestrial productivity on highly weathered soils that can fix large amounts of phosphorus. The obvious answer is that biological systems in subtropical and tropical ecosystems compete effectively for available phosphorus (and thus limit occlusion of phosphorus) and/or that occluded phosphorus is not necessarily unavailable on the time scale of ecosystem development. In order to model the time scales of ecosystem development with the CENTURY model, we had to modify the representation of phosphorus occlusion so that there is a reverse flow of occluded phospho-... 

---