Table 1.
Examples of liana-related ecological questions that could be addressed using appropriate vegetation model developments and simulations.
| Liana-related ecological questions | Role(s) vegetation models have to play |
|---|---|
| Demography | |
| What is/are the driver(s) of increasing liana abundance, and how do these drivers interact? | Understanding/quantifying |
| What is the future liana abundance locally? Regionally? Pantropically? | Predicting/upscaling |
| What are the effects of liana loading on hosting trees? | Quantifying |
| What drives the occurrence and duration of liana-induced arrested succession? | Understanding |
| How will lianas affect the forest structure and composition under future climate and land-use scenarios? | Predicting/quantifying |
| What determines the biogeographical distribution of lianas? | Upscaling |
| Forest biogeochemical cycles and carbon allocation | |
| What is the current and future liana contribution to the forest carbon/water/nutrient cycles? | Quantifying/predicting |
| How does differing biomass partitioning to plant organs between lianas and trees contribute to carbon residence time? | Understanding |
| What role do lianas play in the acceleration of the climate-change/forest sink strength decline feedback? | Understanding/quantifying |
| Competition for resources | |
| Do lianas and trees form separate niches with respect to water/nutrient uptake? | Integrating |
| Are lianas more drought-tolerant than trees? How? | Integrating/understanding |
| Do lianas aggravate the drought stress in tropical forests? | Understanding/quantifying |
| What are the amounts of water and nutrients ‘taken’ from trees by competing lianas? | Quantifying |
| Traits and diversity | |
| Do lianas with different functional traits exhibit different strategies and hence belong to different functional groups (PFTs)? | Integrating |
| How do key liana traits contribute to whole-plant carbon gain in lianas vs self-supporting plants? | Integrating/understanding |
| Which mechanisms allow the long-term coexistence of the different growth forms? | Understanding |
| Forest management | |
| Can lianas hamper/assist in rainforest restoration? | Understanding/predicting |
| How does liana removal affect forest demography and productivity? | Quantifying/predicting |