GFBI International Seminar
by Laura Zeller
The Technical University of Munich, Germany
11:00am-12:00pm March 31, 2017
Percival 335, West Virginia University, USA
Quantifying Forest Structural Diversity in the USA
In recent studies mixed forests were found to be more productive than monocultures. In order to find out (I) how forest structure is related to climatic conditions, (II) how productivity is determined by forest structure, and (III) if forest structure and productivity are depending on the number of species, we study forest structural diversity based on GFBI global forest inventory data (GFB v2.0). As the first step in this study, we calculated 4 tree size diversity metrics for the 14 million trees in 546,839 FIA plots across the United States: mean quadratic diameter, stand density index, coefficient of variation. The map of forest structural diversity shows strong geospatial trend across the United States.
Laura Zeller is the first GFBI visiting student, sent to the West Virginia University by her advisor Prof. Hans Pretzsch. The presentation is based on her three-week study at this university.
Contact: Dr. Jingjing Liang Tel: 304-293-1577, email: jiliang@mail.wvu.edu
