The Sudden Oak Death (SOD) epidemic in California is alarming for those living with, and adjacent to, the complex of oak and tanoak woodland that exist in patches along the coast. Monitoring SOD occurrence and spread is an on-going necessity. Remote sensing methods have proved to be successful in mapping and monitoring forest health and distribution when a sufficiently small ground resolution i...

Dead standing trees (“stags” in Australia) are critical for wildlife in forests throughout the world. Dynamics of stag recruitment and retention are an interaction of tree mortality, size, deterioration rate, human intervention, and variables related to the structure and physiognomy of the forest. Historically in Australia and elsewhere, timber management involved the removal of stags and resul...

We have analysed interferometric coherence variations in Japanese Earth Resources Satellite (JERS-1) L-band synthetic aperture radar (SAR) data at three central Amazon sites: Lake Balbina, Cabaliana and Solimões-Purús. Because radar pulse interactions with inundated vegetation typically follow a double-bounce travel path that returns energy to the antenna, coherence will vary with vegetation ty...

Hylobius warreni Wood, also known as the Warren root collar weevil, is a flightless insect that feeds on conifers throughout the boreal forests of Canada. Mature trees typically can withstand feeding, but larval feeding around the root collar may cause mortality to young trees. Recently, a large outbreak of mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins) has killed a high proportion of m...

It is observed that big trees are older than little trees and there are more little trees than big trees since not every little tree grows up to be a big tree most die young. But seeds produced and shed by the bigger trees will naturally form little trees. It can also be noticed that there are some dead needles and leaves on the ground and some standing dead trees which will eventually fall to ...

Many species of birds, mammals, amphibians, and reptiles use coarse woody debris (i.e., standing and downed dead wood) for nesting, roosting, foraging, and shelter. Woodpeckers depend on decayed wood to excavate nest and roost cavities in standing trees. Secondary cavity nesters then claim the abandoned cavities for their nesting or roosting. Many of the woodpeckers and secondary cavity nesters...

Standing dead trees, known as snags, are an essential factor in maintaining biodiversity in forest ecosystems. Combined with their role as carbon sinks, this makes for a compelling reason to study their spatial distribution. This paper presents an integrated method to detect and delineate individual dead tree crowns from color infrared aerial imagery. Our approach consists of two steps which in...