Assessing uncertainties in a second-generation dynamic vegetation model caused by ecological scale limitations

competitive exclusion, dynamic global vegetation model (DGVM), ecosystem demography, migration, perfect plasticity, scaling. Summary • Second-generation Dynamic Global Vegetation Models (DGVMs) have recently been developed that explicitly represent the ecological dynamics of disturbance, vertical competition for light, and succession. Here, we introduce a modified second-generation DGVM and examine how the representation of demographic processes operating at two-dimensional spatial scales not represented by these models can influence predicted community structure, and responses of ecosystems to climate change. • The key demographic processes we investigated were seed advection, seed mix-ing, sapling survival, competitive exclusion and plant mortality. We varied these parameters in the context of a simulated Amazon rainforest ecosystem containin