Ecosystem, Abiotic, and Biotic Responses – Comparison Among Individual Models
In general, outcomes of the ecosystem and biotic response models were more alike than either was to the abiotic response model. The ecosystem and biotic response models performed similarly, and shared similar sets of significant predictors (Table 1), including the three most important predictors (leaf area index, softwood basal area, and normalized vegetation difference index). The cumulative contribution of abiotic, biotic, and geographic predictors to each model (Figure 4) differed; yet again the ecosystem and biotic response models showed commonalities, particularly with the large relative contribution biotic predictors made to these formulations. I-spline functions for these two latter models also revealed parallels. Comparable curve inflections were apparent between canopy height, leaf area index, softwood basal area, and hardwood basal area I-splines (Figure 3).