[Paradoxical behaviour of a process-based model of plant succession]

A model of plant succession has been built for simulating the growth of six species, based on physiological processes such as photosynthesis, growth and maintenance respiration, carbon allocation, nitrogen absorption, fixation and remobilisation, organ mortality, seed dispersal and germination. The simulated global plant productivity decreases in response to an increase in soil nitrogen availability. The reason is a replacement of the rapidly-growing legume species by slow-growing shrub species that are higher than the legume and thus shade it. This paradoxical result could have a wide application field.