Over the past 50 years,crown asymmetry of forest trees has been evaluated through several indices constructed from the perspective of projected crown shape or displacement but often on an ad hoc basis to address speci...Over the past 50 years,crown asymmetry of forest trees has been evaluated through several indices constructed from the perspective of projected crown shape or displacement but often on an ad hoc basis to address specifi c objectives related to tree growth and competition,stand dynamics,stem form,crown structure and treefall risks.Although sharing some similarities,these indices are largely incoherent and non-comparable as they diff er not only in the scale but also in the direction of their values in indicating the degree of crown asymmetry.As the fi rst attempt at devising normative measures of crown asymmetry,we adopted a relative scale between 0 for perfect symmetry and 1 for extreme asymmetry.Five existing crown asymmetry indices(CAIs)were brought onto this relative scale after necessary modifi cations.Eight new CAIs were adapted from measures of circularity for digital images in computer graphics,indices of income inequality in economics,and a bilateral symmetry indicator in plant leaf morphology.The performances of the 13 CAIs were compared over diff erent numbers of measured crown radii for 30 projected crowns of mature Eucalyptus pilularis trees through benchmarking statistics and rank order correlation analysis.For each CAI,the index value based on the full measurement of 36 evenly spaced radii of a projected crown was taken as the true value in the benchmarking process.The index(CAI 13)adapted from the simple bilateral symmetry measure proved to be the least biased and most precise.Its performance was closely followed by that of three other CAIs.The minimum number of crown radii that is needed to provide at least an indicative measure of crown asymmetry is four.For more accurate and consistent measures,at least 6 or 8 crown radii are needed.The range of variability in crown morphology of the trees under investigation also needs to be taken into consideration.Although the CAIs are from projected crown radii,they can be readily extended to individual tree crown metrics that are now commonly extracted from LiDAR and other remotely sensed data.Adding a normative measure of crown asymmetry to individual tree crown metrics will facilitate the process of big data analytics and artifi cial intelligence in forestry wherever crown morphology is among the factors to be considered for decision making in forest management.展开更多
Inventory data were available from 96 plots of even-aged,monoculture,tall-open forests of Eucalyptus pilularis Smith,aged 2-63 years,growing in sub-tropical regions along the east coast of Australia.A model was develo...Inventory data were available from 96 plots of even-aged,monoculture,tall-open forests of Eucalyptus pilularis Smith,aged 2-63 years,growing in sub-tropical regions along the east coast of Australia.A model was developed relating the maximum possible stem basal area growth rate of individual trees to their stem basal area.For any tree size,this maximum increased as site productivity increased.However,the size at which this maximum occurred decreased as productivity increased.Much research has shown that,at any stand age,trees of a particular stem basal area are taller on more productive sites than on less productive ones.Taller trees incur greater respiratory costs to ensure maintenance of the photo synthetic capacity of their canopies;this reduces their growth rates.It was concluded that trees with larger basal areas will have the maximum possible growth rate on a less productive site,whilst trees with smaller basal areas will have the maximum possible on a more productive site.The model developed may constitute the first stage of a complete individual tree growth model system to predict wood yields from these forests.展开更多
Aims While a growing number of studies have demonstrated the impor-tance of intraspecific differences within plant species on associ-ated arthropod communities,little is known regarding the relative strength of these ...Aims While a growing number of studies have demonstrated the impor-tance of intraspecific differences within plant species on associ-ated arthropod communities,little is known regarding the relative strength of these effects compared to environmental factors.In this study,we examined whether intraspecific plant differences and nutrient fertilization interact to shape the arthropod community of a dominant coastal shrub,Baccharis pilularis(coyote bush).Methods We overlaid a fertilization treatment on a 12-year-old common garden experiment planted with erect and prostrate architectural morphs of Baccharis in california,USA.to collect the associated arthropod community,we vacuum sampled the crown of each Baccharis and identified individuals to species or morphospecies.Important Findings We found that arthropod richness and abundance were 2-to 3-fold greater on prostrate Baccharis than on erect morphs,but observed no main effects of fertilizer addition on the over-all arthropod communities.Predators responded as strongly as herbivores to plant morph,and both were unaffected by nutrient additions.Only the specialist stem galler,Gnorimoschema bac-charisella,showed an interactive response to plant morph and fertilization.Nitrogen,phosphorous and potassium addition had opposite effects on the two morphs,increasing stem gall abun-dance by 50%on prostrate morphs,but reducing galling by 20%on erect morphs.the architectural complexity of prostrate morphs could be the driving mechanism of differences in arthropod assemblages.Overall,our results demonstrate that communitylevel consequences of intraspecific differences in plants are strong,rather than being context dependent,and are generally maintained under different resource environments.the growing number of studies showing strong genotype than nutrient effects on associated arthropod communities suggests that this might be a generalized pattern.展开更多
基金the Heilongjiang Touyan Innovation Team 747 Program(Technology Development Team for High-effi cient Silviculture of Forest Resources).
文摘Over the past 50 years,crown asymmetry of forest trees has been evaluated through several indices constructed from the perspective of projected crown shape or displacement but often on an ad hoc basis to address specifi c objectives related to tree growth and competition,stand dynamics,stem form,crown structure and treefall risks.Although sharing some similarities,these indices are largely incoherent and non-comparable as they diff er not only in the scale but also in the direction of their values in indicating the degree of crown asymmetry.As the fi rst attempt at devising normative measures of crown asymmetry,we adopted a relative scale between 0 for perfect symmetry and 1 for extreme asymmetry.Five existing crown asymmetry indices(CAIs)were brought onto this relative scale after necessary modifi cations.Eight new CAIs were adapted from measures of circularity for digital images in computer graphics,indices of income inequality in economics,and a bilateral symmetry indicator in plant leaf morphology.The performances of the 13 CAIs were compared over diff erent numbers of measured crown radii for 30 projected crowns of mature Eucalyptus pilularis trees through benchmarking statistics and rank order correlation analysis.For each CAI,the index value based on the full measurement of 36 evenly spaced radii of a projected crown was taken as the true value in the benchmarking process.The index(CAI 13)adapted from the simple bilateral symmetry measure proved to be the least biased and most precise.Its performance was closely followed by that of three other CAIs.The minimum number of crown radii that is needed to provide at least an indicative measure of crown asymmetry is four.For more accurate and consistent measures,at least 6 or 8 crown radii are needed.The range of variability in crown morphology of the trees under investigation also needs to be taken into consideration.Although the CAIs are from projected crown radii,they can be readily extended to individual tree crown metrics that are now commonly extracted from LiDAR and other remotely sensed data.Adding a normative measure of crown asymmetry to individual tree crown metrics will facilitate the process of big data analytics and artifi cial intelligence in forestry wherever crown morphology is among the factors to be considered for decision making in forest management.
文摘Inventory data were available from 96 plots of even-aged,monoculture,tall-open forests of Eucalyptus pilularis Smith,aged 2-63 years,growing in sub-tropical regions along the east coast of Australia.A model was developed relating the maximum possible stem basal area growth rate of individual trees to their stem basal area.For any tree size,this maximum increased as site productivity increased.However,the size at which this maximum occurred decreased as productivity increased.Much research has shown that,at any stand age,trees of a particular stem basal area are taller on more productive sites than on less productive ones.Taller trees incur greater respiratory costs to ensure maintenance of the photo synthetic capacity of their canopies;this reduces their growth rates.It was concluded that trees with larger basal areas will have the maximum possible growth rate on a less productive site,whilst trees with smaller basal areas will have the maximum possible on a more productive site.The model developed may constitute the first stage of a complete individual tree growth model system to predict wood yields from these forests.
基金EEB summer grants from the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology,University of Tennessee(to M.N.B.-G.and M.A.R.-C.)the Miller Institute for Basic Research in Science(to G.M.C.).
文摘Aims While a growing number of studies have demonstrated the impor-tance of intraspecific differences within plant species on associ-ated arthropod communities,little is known regarding the relative strength of these effects compared to environmental factors.In this study,we examined whether intraspecific plant differences and nutrient fertilization interact to shape the arthropod community of a dominant coastal shrub,Baccharis pilularis(coyote bush).Methods We overlaid a fertilization treatment on a 12-year-old common garden experiment planted with erect and prostrate architectural morphs of Baccharis in california,USA.to collect the associated arthropod community,we vacuum sampled the crown of each Baccharis and identified individuals to species or morphospecies.Important Findings We found that arthropod richness and abundance were 2-to 3-fold greater on prostrate Baccharis than on erect morphs,but observed no main effects of fertilizer addition on the over-all arthropod communities.Predators responded as strongly as herbivores to plant morph,and both were unaffected by nutrient additions.Only the specialist stem galler,Gnorimoschema bac-charisella,showed an interactive response to plant morph and fertilization.Nitrogen,phosphorous and potassium addition had opposite effects on the two morphs,increasing stem gall abun-dance by 50%on prostrate morphs,but reducing galling by 20%on erect morphs.the architectural complexity of prostrate morphs could be the driving mechanism of differences in arthropod assemblages.Overall,our results demonstrate that communitylevel consequences of intraspecific differences in plants are strong,rather than being context dependent,and are generally maintained under different resource environments.the growing number of studies showing strong genotype than nutrient effects on associated arthropod communities suggests that this might be a generalized pattern.
