Author(s)

Junze Yin

Corresponding Author

Junze Yin

Abstract

Plant communities are quite vulnerable to the increasing frequency and intensity of droughts caused by climate change. The loss of plant communities due to drought can have profound ecological and economic consequences. Observations suggest that greater species diversity within a community enhances a plant's ability to adapt to drought. We propose Plant Community with Drought (PCD) Model. PCD predicts the plant community changes under the influence of drought. The model explores from a single-species changing model to a plant community model. It also investigates the community's long-term viability. Sensitivity analysis is performed on the model. Two main parameters, sensitivity to drought sensitivity and interaction factor between species, are selected both from 0.1 to 1. To observe the change rate of community size, 100 experiments were conducted. The maximum rate of change is less than 10%, which shows the stability and robustness of the model. On the impact of species type, it mainly reflects the attributes of the species.

Keywords

Drought, plant communities, adaptation, biodiversityDrought, plant communities, adaptation, biodiversity