Abstract Many terrestrial biogeochemistry process models have been applied around the world at different scales and for a large range of ecosystems. Despite being essential ecosystems that sustain important ecological processes, only a few efforts have been made to estimate the gross primary production (GPP) and the hydrological budgets along an altitudinal gradient for grasslands in the Andean Region. One of the few previous studies in the region considered the heterogeneity of the main properties of the páramo vegetation and showed significant differences in plant functional types, site/soil parameters, and daily meteorology. This study extends the work previously mentioned by using the Biome-BGC model to simulate the GPP and the water fluxes in a representative area of the Ecuadorian Andean páramos. It focuses on three main growth forms of vegetation and is also extended to cells with similar properties. The responses of GPP and the water fluxes were dependent on environmental drivers, ecophysiology, and site-specific parameters. The results showed that the GPP estimations at lower elevations are more than twice the estimations at higher elevations, which might have a large implication during extrapolations at larger spatiotemporal scales. The assessment of the water fluxes in the páramo ecosystem was inaccurate, presumably due to the poor estimation of the soil processes, water storage, and evaporative processes. A further development in the soil and evaporative modeling process of Biome-BGC is needed in order to be fully applicable in the high-altitudinal páramo ecosystems. An accurate estimation of the temporal changes of carbon and water budgets can potentially assess the effect of the climate drivers in the biomass productivity of this terrestrial ecosystem.

中文翻译：

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使用 Biome-BGC 模型模拟厄瓜多尔安第斯地区帕拉莫草原的总初级生产和水文过程

摘要 许多陆地生物地球化学过程模型已在世界范围内以不同的规模和大范围的生态系统应用。尽管是维持重要生态过程的基本生态系统，但在估算安第斯地区草原沿海拔梯度的初级生产总值 (GPP) 和水文预算方面所做的努力很少。该地区之前为数不多的研究之一考虑了帕拉莫植被主要特性的异质性，并表明植物功能类型、场地/土壤参数和日常气象存在显着差异。本研究通过使用 Biome-BGC 模型来模拟厄瓜多尔安第斯山脉代表性区域的 GPP 和水通量，扩展了前面提到的工作。它侧重于植被的三种主要生长形式，也扩展到具有相似特性的细胞。GPP 和水通量的响应取决于环境驱动因素、生态生理学和特定地点的参数。结果表明，较低海拔处的 GPP 估计值是较高海拔处估计值的两倍以上，这可能在更大时空尺度的外推过程中产生很大的影响。帕拉莫生态系统中水通量的评估不准确，可能是由于对土壤过程、储水和蒸发过程的估计不足。需要进一步开发 Biome-BGC 的土壤和蒸发建模过程，以便完全适用于高海拔帕拉莫生态系统。