Understanding global trends in 3D tree architecture
Abstract
Quantifying the drivers of individual tree architecture in broad (e.g. climatic) and local (e.g. competition) terms is critical for accurately estimating productivity, competition, global carbon stocks, forest growth and sequestration potential, and fundamental principles of ecological theory (e.g. Metabolic Scaling Theory) - all of which directly impact mechanistic forest ecosystem models.
Recent advances in close-range remote sensing have brought about a revolution of three-dimensional tree-level LiDAR measurements using terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), but the inherently local nature of TLS limits scalability for large-scale ecological questions. In recent years, the number of TLS studies capturing forest structure have exploded, covering a wide range of ecosystems and forest types. Leveraging a recently released Global TLS Metadata Database that brings together years of past TLS campaigns and thousands of tree models, we analyze variations in tree architecture at a global scale with a suite of site-specific and climatic variables.- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2020
- Bibcode:
- 2020AGUFMB041...02S
- Keywords:
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- 0430 Computational methods and data processing;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 0439 Ecosystems;
- structure and dynamics;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 0466 Modeling;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 0480 Remote sensing;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES