Forest Ecology and Conservation Group

Here we estimated AGB of primary tropical forests using airborne LiDAR and Landsat 8 OLI. We found that Landsat 8 OLI’s textures show greater potential to estimate AGB compared with LiDAR, and a synergistic use of Landsat 8 OLI and LiDAR outperforms the independent-data models in estimating biomass of tropical lowland rainforests. Phua, M.H. et al. Forest Ecology and…

We evaluated the effectiveness of using the isotopic ratio of 13C to 12C stored in wood, referred to as δ13C, and stem basal area increments (BAI) as indicators of drought in European trees. Using tree ring data from over 3000 trees, we found that while δ13C responded strongly and consistently to drought across a diverse group of…

Estimation of the Gini coefficient (GC) of tree sizes using airborne laser scanning (ALS) can provide maps of forest structure across the landscape, which can support sustainable forest management. A challenge arises in determining the optimal spatial resolution that maximizes the stability and precision of GC estimates, which in turn depends on stand density or…

This study looks into the effectiveness of protecting riparian forest strips on forest birds. We characterized bird communities of 28 sites in an oil palm‐forest mosaic in Sabah, Malaysia using 6,104 encounters from 840 point counts. Results show that riparian reserve width, forest quality, and amount of forest cover are important in supporting rich bird…

We apply a spatially-implicit, allometry-based modelling approach to predict stem diameter distributions (SDDs) from low density airborne LiDAR data in a heterogeneous, temperate forest in Ontario, Canada. Using a recently published algorithm that relates the density, size, and species of individual trees to the height distribution of first returns, we estimated parameters that succinctly describe…

Brazil meets about 16% of its energy needs with bioethanol and other sugarcane products and leads the world in biofuel energy production. However, there are concerns over the environmental credentials of the sugarcane given the high emissions of nitrous oxide (N2O) − a potent greenhouse gas − associated with its production. We quantify N2O fluxes…

Tropical forests are a key component of the global carbon cycle, and mapping their carbon density is essential for understanding human influences on climate and for ecosystem-service-based payments for forest protection. Discrete-return airborne laser scanning (ALS) is increasingly recognised as a high-quality technology for mapping tropical forest carbon, because it generates 3D point clouds of forest structure from which aboveground…

Recognising individual trees within remotely sensed imagery has important applications in forest ecology and management. Several algorithms for tree delineation have been suggested, mostly based on locating local maxima or inverted basins in raster canopy height models (CHMs) derived from Light Detection And Ranging (LiDAR) data or photographs. However, these algorithms often lead to inaccurate…

Parenchyma represents a critically important living tissue in the sapwood of the secondary xylem of woody angiosperms. Considering various interactions between parenchyma and water transporting vessels, we hypothesize a structure–function relationship between both cell types. Through a generalized additive mixed model approach based on 2,332 woody angiosperm species derived from the literature, we explored the…