About GDSTEM
The Global Dynamical and Structural Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (GDSTEM) is the latest generation in a family of process-based terrestrial ecosystem models developed over more than three decades to investigate interactions among terrestrial ecosystems, biogeochemical cycles, climate, and human activities.
GDSTEM builds directly on the scientific foundations of the Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (TEM) and TEM-Hydro, while extending this modeling framework for contemporary regional and global applications.
Scientific lineage
The Terrestrial Ecosystem Model
The scientific lineage of GDSTEM began with the Terrestrial Ecosystem Model (TEM) in the early 1990s.
TEM was developed at the Ecosystems Center of the Marine Biological Laboratory through the work of Jerry Melillo, David Kicklighter, Dave McGuire, and their collaborators. Their work established the scientific and computational foundation on which GDSTEM is built.
An important feature of TEM was its process-based representation of interactions between the terrestrial carbon and nitrogen cycles. Early versions were used to investigate net primary productivity at regional and global scales and were among the early terrestrial ecosystem models to explicitly consider the influence of nitrogen limitation on ecosystem carbon dynamics.
Over subsequent generations, TEM was expanded to simulate transient ecosystem responses to climate and atmospheric CO₂, land-use change, and the effects of tropospheric ozone on vegetation. The development of a land-use transition framework also provided the foundation for the cohort-based representation of ecosystem history used by GDSTEM today.
The contributions of Jerry Melillo, David Kicklighter, and Dave McGuire remain fundamental to the scientific framework and continued development of the TEM family of models.
From TEM to TEM-Hydro
TEM-Hydro represented a major extension of the TEM framework and was developed under the leadership of Ben Felzer, together with Tim Cronin and collaborators.
TEM-Hydro introduced a more detailed representation of vegetation structure, separating vegetation carbon among components such as leaves, sapwood, heartwood, roots, and seed storage. It also introduced a more physically based representation of ecosystem hydrology and strengthened the coupling among carbon, nitrogen, and water dynamics.
These developments provided the direct scientific and computational foundation from which GDSTEM was developed.
From TEM-Hydro to GDSTEM
GDSTEM builds directly on TEM-Hydro while extending the model for contemporary global terrestrial ecosystem and carbon-cycle research.
Major developments include the incorporation of the TEM6.0 open nitrogen-cycle framework, expanded representations of land use and land management, updated global environmental forcing datasets, calibration of plant functional types across global environmental conditions, and simulation and evaluation frameworks designed for global applications.
GDSTEM retains the process-based carbon, nitrogen, water, vegetation, and land-use foundations developed through TEM and TEM-Hydro while providing a framework designed to investigate the interacting effects of climate, atmospheric CO₂, nitrogen deposition, tropospheric ozone, land use, land management, and ecosystem history.
More detailed information about the current model structure and processes is available on the Model page.
GDSTEM today
GDSTEM is under active development, calibration, and evaluation by a collaborative team of ecosystem scientists, model developers, and students.
The model is being developed for regional and global terrestrial ecosystem applications and has contributed simulations to international assessments of the terrestrial carbon cycle, including the Global Carbon Budget.
A comprehensive model description and evaluation manuscript is currently in preparation. Current development also includes continued improvements to model processes and the development of new ecosystem disturbance capabilities.
See the Development Team for the scientists and students currently contributing to GDSTEM and the Publications page for research associated with GDSTEM and its scientific lineage.
Development and collaboration
GDSTEM is developed as a collaborative scientific modeling project. Researchers interested in the model, its development, or potential scientific collaborations are encouraged to contact members of the development team.