The Correlation Between Tree Dbh And Canopy Coverage

Every forest has a story to tell. By looking closely at its habitants, that story can be interpreted. Much of this narrative is written in the trees: their age, their tolerance to shade, and the rate at which they grow are all characteristics that can imply a lot about their environment. Exploring these relationships and how they connect with each other can indicate the health and history of the land. Heiberg Forest, located in northern New York, was once used for agricultural purposes in the 1800-1900’s. (Nowak, Lecture Notes) Much of the land once used for farming was left to regrow back into a young forest. The life history of different tree species can be determined by examining the most common species in Heiberg.

Biological Issue. (n.d.). Retrieved March 16, 2014, from http://averillbiology.blogspot.com/2011/01/redwood-trees-devastating-deforestation.html CHAPTER FOUR: ECOLOGICAL EFFECTS: THE TERRESTRIAL ENVIRONMENT. (1998). Environmental Management Handbook, 177-192.

The topography of the island is also of note. The west end of the island features a closed-canopy forest with more hardwood trees. The east end of the island is better characterized as a “boreal forest,” a term used to describe regions that are mostly covered by coniferous forests. It is good to note that the balsam fir is found on both ends of the island, but that samples used in the study from the west end of the island were, on average, older, but shorter, than those samples found on the east side of the island.

Based on the current conditions of the area, we hypothesis that tree survivability will be highest in elevations above 3,000 feet and below 3,300 feet, highest in slopes between 0 - 45 degrees, and highest in aspects between 0 - 33 degrees. Tree survivability will also be highest in area with the best soil, water quality, and forest health conditions for successful tree sapling growth.

Boxelder Maple trees depend on the dispersal of their samaras to reproduce. The samaras are the seeds of the tree that are shaped in such a way that the wing of the seed causing it to spin. The seed does not fall directly but instead twirls like a helicopter making it stay in the air longer. With the wind the seed can then me dispersed away from the parent tree to take rout and grow on its own. Not all seeds float away from the parent seed and take rout. Some end up falling to close to the parent tree not allowing them to survive due to not getting nutrients and sunlight. “Recent field studies have made progress in elucidating the mechanisms behind these patterns and the implications of these patterns for recruitment success”

Fog is believed to have a great impact on a forest ecosystem. To measure how much of an affect fog can have on the redwood costal forest, the experimenters measured the amount of water and nitrogen changes from horizontal moving fog, rain, and overall redwood tree function. They predicted that during the fog season, the differences in dispositions from the amount of fog on the edge of the redwood forest and the interior would translate to differences in ecosystem function. These functions include plant performance, soil moisture, and nutrient availability across the forest. They believe that during the winter rain season there is no disparities in ecosystems from the edge to the interior of the redwood forest. In the end they discovered that

Research by Su et al. (1996) revealed that different hardwood content in stands influences balsam fir defoliation and mortality caused by spruce budworm. Defoliation and mortality are less in stand with high hardwood content than in stands with low hardwoods (MacLean 1980; Bergeron et al. 1995; Su et al. 1996). This results in higher canopy openness in stands with high conifer content than in high hardwood content

To see the differences of the two sites, basal area, density, species richness, and the Shannon diversity index were used. Basal area and density is the average amount of space of trees in hectares. Basal area is taken using the tree diameters while density uses the number of trees. Species richness is the number of species found. Abundance of each species is used to find the Shannon diversity index. The Sorensen similarity index compares the areas based on the number of the same species. Also, different species were looked at to find the relative basal area, relative density, and importance value of the trees. There were differences and similarities in both

Limitations of dendrochronology may lead to invalid results. In parts of the world, specifically the tropics, species of trees will not have a

When analyzing the map obtained for percentage of canopy density in Southwestern Grady Oak Savanna and part of the Green Prairie unit, we can see how there’s some areas that are close to what we would expect in terms of canopy density for an Oak Savanna. This areas, like the ones in the Northwestern part of the Southwestern Grady Oak Savanna and the northern half of the Green Prairie present percentages of canopy cover lower than 50%. However, most of the area analyzed presents a percentage of canopy density bigger than 50%, with some areas presenting values ranging as high as from 86% to 99%. The southern part of the Southwestern Grady Oak Savanna is one of them. The effects of this closed canopy can be

In Area 2, the species with the highest dominance value was the Oregon White Oak (70.6%). Oregon White Oaks provide shelter, housing, and food to various animals as well. Diversity of birds is often higher in Oregon White Oaks than in an adjacent coniferous forest. Using the dominance data, it tells us that at this moment in time Oregon Oak and

Species richness is the number of tree species. The species richness was 7 for the burned side of Coal Road compared to 11 for the unburned side. Species evenness is calculated using Shannon’s diversity index by dividing Shannon's diversity index ‘H’ by the natural logarithm of species richness. On the burned side of Coal Road, the species evenness was 0.0205 while on the unburned side of Coal Road the species evenness was 0.0411. The combination of greater species richness and evenness confirms the unburned side of Coal Road is more diverse than the burned side of Coal Road. Thus, our hypothesis is incorrect that the burned region would produce more species diversity while the unburned region would exhibit less species

British Columbia has relied on forestry as an economical export resource for about 100 years. In B.C we have two main forests, the coastal forest, which contains the dominant species of the western hemlock (figure 1.). But, also contain red cedar and Douglas fir below the 51st parallel. (Text pg. 128- 129) This is typically a very dense sprawling forest, with large trees. Opposed to the interior forest, that mainly is populated with lodge pole pine and spruce trees. These trees are both small and spread further apart from one tree to another. (Figure 2)

Our lab investigated the morphological characteristics of leaves found in the sun and shade on various species of maple and oak trees around campus. Our null hypothesis was Acer and Quercus acclimate similarly with regards to SLW (specific leaf weight), size, and sinuosity. Our hypothesis was Quercus acclimation is greater than Acer SLW, size, and sinuosity. We tested these hypotheses by picking small sections of a branches from both maple and oak trees. A group was assigned either a maple or an oak tree, and needed a total of three different trees per group. Once three different trees were chosen, groups needed three shade leaves and three sun leaves of off each different tree. In total, each group should then end up with 18 leaves for testing. After collecting the leaves, we ran them through the LiCor 3100 leaf area meter to identify the area of each leaf. Major results found by the classes’ mutual data was each one of our p-values were greater than .05. This means that we failed to reject the null hypothesis. Thus, the lab results do not support our hypothesis that Quercus acclimation is greater than Acer SLW, size, and sinuosity.

The rate of deforestation is increasing and the tropical forests are falling at approximately 140,000 acres per day (Miller & Tangley 1991: xvi). The forests are crucial to the environment. They are important in minimizing erosion, providing a stable habitat for many animals, and helping to keep the environment clean. Deforestation has devastating effects, not only on the biological dependents within the depleted forests, but also on the surrounding human-populated communities.