forest types mapping, is one of the most necessary elements in the forest management and silviculture treatments. traditional methods such as field surveys are almost time-consuming and cost-intensive. improvements in remote sensing data sources and classification –estimation methods are preparing new opportunities for obtaining more accurate forest biophysical attributes maps. this research co...

Mountains provide an opportunity to examine changes in biodiversity across environmental gradients and areas of transition (ecotones). Mountain ecotones separate vegetation belts. Here, we aimed to examine whether transition areas for birds and butterflies spatially correspond with ecotones between three previously described altitudinal vegetation belts on Mt. Hermon, northern Israel. These inc...

Most research on boundaries between vegetation types emphasizes the contrasts and similarities between conditions on either side of a boundary, but does not compare boundary to non-boundary vegetation. That is, most previous studies lack suitable controls, and may therefore overlook underlying aspects of landscape variability at a regional scale and underestimate the effects that the vegetation...

Due to the dispersed nature of forestry operations in much of the world, only a subset of a given forest road network are used in any year. Specifically, spur roads are generally only used when harvesting operations are adjacent to roadways; otherwise, they remain unused or only have infrequent administrative traffic. During these periods of light use, a substantial amount of organic litter may...

BACKGROUND The total amount of native vegetation is an important property of fragmented landscapes and is known to exert a strong influence on population and metapopulation dynamics. As the relationship between habitat loss and local patch and gap characteristics is strongly non-linear, theoretical models predict that immigration rates should decrease dramatically at low levels of remaining nat...

The Oaxacan Spiny-tailed Iguana Ctenosaura oaxacana is a restricted species to the Isthmus of Tehuantepec in Southern Oaxaca, Mexico. This reptile is one of the less known iguanid species. We census-tracked a population in the South ofNiltepec, Oaxaca, Mexico from May 2010 to April 2011. Throughout one year, a total of 10 line transects were situated and recorded in the study area to determine ...

Remotely sensed images including LANDSAT, SPOT, NAIP orthoimagery, and LiDAR and relevant processing tools can be used to predict plant stomatal conductance (gs), leaf area index (LAI), and canopy temperature, vegetation density, albedo, and soil moisture using vegetation indices like normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) or soil adjusted vegetation index (SAVI) developed with near infr...

Three-dimensional (3-D) visualizations of forest landscapes are quantitative ecological information-based techniques that can be used to visualize forest structure, dynamics, landscape transformations and regional plans. Visualizing forests and landscapes with limited ground observations are often the primary challenge for quality animations. Conducting stand-level field surveys over a large fo...

This paper presents a scattering model, based on the Radiative Energy Transfer (RET), adapted to accommodate inhomogeneous vegetation volumes. The model is applied to a real size test forest, formed from 5 different tree species, randomly distributed throughout the test forest. The propagation model relies on four input parameters which were extracted from the different tree types forming the t...

Tropical deforestation is leading not only to losses of biodiversity but also to regional losses of vegetation productivity. However, in many areas the deforestation process is usually accompanied by a fast forest regeneration that produces a mosaic of forest patches in different successional stages. These successional stages have different productivities owing primarily to differences in speci...