"The Lund-Potsdam-Jena Dynamic Global Vegetation Model (LPJ) combines process-based, large-scale representations of
terrestrial vegetation dynamics and land-atmosphere carbon and water exchanges in a modular framework. Features include
feedback through canopy conductance between photosynthesis and transpiration and interactive coupling between these "fast"
processes and other ecosystem processes including resource competition, tissue turnover, population dynamics, soil organic
matter and litter dynamics and fire disturbance. Ten plant functional types (PFTs) are differentiated by physiological, morphological,
phenological, bioclimatic and fire-response attributes. Resource competition and differential responses to fire between PFTs
influence their relative fractional cover from year to year. Photosynthesis, evapotranspiration and soil-water dynamics are modelled
on a daily time step, while vegetation structure and PFT population densities are updated annually. (...) The model is being used to
study past, present and future terrestrial ecosystem dynamics, biochemical and biophysical interactions between ecosystems and
the atmosphere, and as a component of coupled Earth system models." (Sitch et al. (2003), GCB, 9, p. 161-185)