Publications 2010 – 2019 – Forest Ecology and Conservation Group

Taylor’s law and related allometric power laws in New Zealand mountain beech forests: the roles of space, time and environment

We tested Taylor’s law and related allometric power laws using 10 censuses of New Zealand mountain beech trees in 250 plots over 30 years at spatial scales from 5 m to kilometers. Cohen, J.E.; Lai, J.; Coomes, D.A.; Allen, R.B. 2016 PDF
Combining spatial data with survey data improves predictions of boundaries between settlements

We present a novel method for generating and optimising weights for multiplicatively weighted Voronoi polygons using survey data of village sizes from a subset of villages. Wilebore, B.; Coomes, D.A. 2016 PDF
Aboveground biomass estimation in tropical forests using LiDAR to identify single trees

In this paper we present a study on the estimation of the aboveground biomass in tropical forests at single tree level using airborne laser scanning (ALS) data. Dalponte, M.; Jucker, T.; Burslem, D.F.R.P.; Lewis, S.L.; Nilus, R.; Phillips, O.; Qie, L.; Coomes, D.A. 2016 PDF
Crown plasticity enables trees to optimize canopy packing in mixed-species forests

Using crown allometric data collected for 12 939 trees from permanent forest plots across Europe, we test whether diversity promotes canopy packing across forest types and whether increased canopy packing occurs primarily through vertical stratification of tree crowns or intraspecific plasticity in crown morphology. Jucker, T.; Bouriaud, O.; Coomes, D.A. 2015 PDF
A simple area-based model for predicting airborne LiDAR first returns from stem diameter distributions: an example study in an uneven-aged, mixed temperate forest

We present an area-based allometric model (with three levels of species specificity) that links ground-based plot data to the height distribution of LiDAR first returns, demonstrating theapproach with survey data from a mixed, uneven-aged forest in central Ontario. Spriggs, R.A.; Vanderwel, M.C.; Jones, T.A.; Caspersen, J.P.; Coomes, D.A. 2015 PDF
A Comparison of Novel Optical Remote Sensing-Based Technologies for Forest-Cover/Change Monitoring

We compared maps of forest cover and change produced by the more traditional supervised classification approach with those produced by CLASlite and the GFCD. Lui, G.V.; Coomes, D.A. 2015 PDF
MAPPING INDIVIDUAL TREES FROM AIRBORNE MULTI-SENSOR IMAGERY

This paper presents effective and efficient algorithms in terms of tackling coalignment of LiDAR and hyperspectral datasets, classifying individual trees, thus detecting tree species and leaf chemistry from the tree mapping. Lee, J.; Cai, X.; Schönlieb, C.; Coomes, D.A. 2015 PDF
Light accelerates plant responses to warming

We manipulated levels of photosynthetically active radiation, temperature and nitrogen, alone and in combination,in a temperate forest understorey over a 3-year period, and monitored the composition of the understorey community. Frenne et al. 2015 PDF
Century-scale effects of invasive deer and rodents on the dynamics of forests growing on soils of contrasting fertility

We constructed individual-based spatially explicit simulation models of two mixed conifer–angiosperm forests, growing on soils of contrasting phosphorus(P) availability, to investigate how browsing by invasive red deer (Cervus elaphus scoticus) and granivory by invasive rodents might alter forest dynamics. Forsyth et al. 2015 PDF