Predicting primary productivity for forest and desert ecosystem models

A major goal of the Analysis of Ecosystems Program of the U.S. International Biological Program (IBP) was to understand how entire ecosystems function so that their behavior, particularly in response to man-made stresses, might be predictable. A significant part of the research was focused on increasing our knowledge of productivity in natural ecosystems. Productivity was broadly defined so as to include not only energy flux within the trophic structure of the ecosystem but also the attendant water and nutrient fluxes. A major component of the research design in each of the various IBP Biome projects (i.e., grassland, desert, tundra, and deciduous and coniferous forests) was the development of ecosystem-level models of energy and material fluxes.