Biome Change in Southern Africa

Abstract Biomes are regional to global vegetation formations characterised by their structure and functioning. These formations are thus valuable for both quantifying ecological status at sub-regional spatial scales and defining broad adaptive management strategies. Global changes are altering both the structure and the functioning of biomes globally, and while detecting, monitoring and predicting the outcomes of such changes is challenging in Southern Africa, it provides an opportunity to test biome theory with the goal of guiding management responses and evaluating their effectiveness. Here, we synthesise what is known about recent and expected future biome-level changes from Southern Africa by reviewing progress made using dynamic global vegetation modelling (based on archetypal plant functional types), phytoclime modelling (based on species-defined plant growth forms) and phenome monitoring (based on the seasonal timing of vegetation activity). We furthermore discuss how monitoring of indicator species and indicator plant growth forms could be used to detect and monitor biome-level change in the region. We find that all the analysis methods reviewed here indicate that biome-level change is likely to be underway and to continue, but that the analytical approaches and methods differed substantially in their projections. We conclude that the next phases of research on biome change in the region should focus on reconciling these differences by improving the empirical opportunities for model verification and validation.