A primary research focus for NTSG is the development and application of computer modeling tools to simulate the biological and physical processes controlling carbon, water, and nitrogen dynamics in terrestrial ecosystems.
Biome-BGC is the computational core of this research. The current code is the result of more than 15 years of development, testing, and re-development. The present model is a direct descendent of the Forest-BGC computer model (for details regarding the Forest-BGC code, see Running and Coughlan, 1988, and Running and Gower, 1992 in the Publications section of our website). The most important differences between the Biome-BGC and Forest-BGC models is that Biome-BGC is designed to simulate ecosystem processes in both forest and non-forest biomes, and Biome-BGC has a more sophisticated treatment of several fundamental processes, including photosynthesis, allocation, and soil carbon and nitrogen dynamics.