Title: Game-theoretic vegetation dynamics modeling: from theory to applications

Abstract: The structure and composition of vegetation emerge from many interacting processes, including plant physiology and demography, competition among individuals, vegetation–soil feedbacks, and environmental conditions and disturbances. In this talk, I will summarize my work on demographic vegetation modeling and ecosystem fire modeling, and show how these ecological processes and eco-evolutionary optimization can be simulated by vegetation models. Through two case studies, on leaf traits and on plant growth forms, I will show how the evolutionarily stable strategies under varying soil and climate conditions allows the model to predict global vegetation dynamics and distribution.