The aim of this study is to analyze the effects of forest gaps on the variations of soil properties in Castanopsis kawakamii natural forest. Soil physical and chemical properties in various sizes and development stages were studied in C. kawakamii natural forest gaps. The results showed that forest gaps in various sizes and development stages could improve soil pore space structure and water ch...

We assessed the impact of species composition and stand structure on the spatial variation of forest carbon density using data collected from a 4-ha plot in a subtropical forest in southern China. We found that 1) forest biomass carbon density significantly differed among communities, reflecting a significant effect of community structure and species composition on carbon accumulation; 2) soil ...

OF THESIS Use of Landsat Data to Characterize Burn Severity, Forest Structure and Invasion by Paulownia (Paulownia Tomentosa) in an Eastern Deciduous Forest, Kentucky Landsat imagery has been used successfully to assess burn severity and monitor postfire forest structure in a variety of ecosystems, but to date there are few documented studies on its application in the eastern deciduous forests ...

Tropical forests convert more atmospheric carbon into biomass each year than any terrestrial ecosystem on Earth, underscoring the importance of accurate tropical forest structure and biomass maps for the understanding and management of the global carbon cycle. Ecologists have long used field inventory plots as the main tool for understanding forest structure and biomass at landscape-to-regional...

Habitat loss represents one of the main threats to tropical forests, which have reached extremely high rates of species extinction. Forest loss negatively impacts biodiversity, affecting ecological (e.g., seed dispersal) and genetic (e.g., genetic diversity and structure) processes. Therefore, understanding how deforestation influences genetic resources is strategic for conservation. Our aim wa...

There is a pressing need to map changes in forest structure from the earliest time period possible given forest management policies and accelerated disturbances from climate change. The availability of Landsat data from over four decades helps researchers study an ecologically meaningful length of time. Forest structure is most often mapped utilizing lidar data, however these data are prohibiti...

Forest structure is a key element to determine the capacity of mountain forests to protect people and their assets against natural hazards. Airborne laser scanning offers new ways for describing forest structure in 3D. This study aimed at developing a generic automated approach for assessing and quantifying forest structure using landscape metrics on height class patches of the normalized crown...

The widespread paradigm in ecology that community structure determines function has recently been challenged by the high complexity of microbial communities. Here, we investigate the patterns of and connections between microbial community structure and microbially-mediated ecological function across different forest management practices and temporal changes in leaf litter across beech forest ec...

SAR Tomography has proven to be a unique tool for the retrieval of 3D structure information from forest scenarios: it can reveal different scattering mechanisms at different heights. However, the translation of these measurements into relevant forest structure information is not straightforward and research is still ongoing. In this direction, this paper suggest a framework for the estimation o...

Increases in the extent and severity of spruce budworm (Choristoneura fumiferana Clem.) outbreaks over the last century are thought to be the result of changes in forest structure due to forest management. A corollary of this hypothesis is that manipulations of forest structure and composition can be used to reduce future forest vulnerability. However, to what extent historical forest managemen...