A simple cellular automaton model for high-level vegetation dynamics

We have produced a simple two-dimensional (ground-plan) cellular automata model of vegetation dynamics specifically to investigate high-level community processes. The model is probabilistic, with individual plant behavior determined by physiologically-based rules derived from a well-known system of plant functional types (the C–S–R system, based on environmental disturbance and resource availability). These plant types, when grown in real experiments with virtual communities, reproduce classical community-level behavior and, in complex communities simulated over a wide range of environmental conditions, produce a clearly ‘hump-backed’ curve linking plant diversity to community productivity. The properties of this curve invite many further layers of experimentation.