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U.S. Department of Energy
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A theory of forest dynamics: Spatially explicit models and issues of scale. Final report, August 1, 1992--July 31, 1993

Technical Report ·
OSTI ID:10194896
We developed, calibrated, tested and analyzed a new spatial model of forest dynamics. The most novel feature of the model is that it was designed simultaneously with a suite of maximum likelihood estimators used to estimate each of the model`s components. We gathered all necessary data for the nine dominant and subdominant species of transition oak - northern hardwoods forests. We propagated all sampling error through the model to identify community - and system-level predictions that are robust to the level of sampling uncertainty in the study. We then tested the robust predictions against data on natural forests from the published literature. These comparisons show that the model is capable of predicting large-scale and long-term forest dynamics from short-term measurements of individual trees. We then analyzed the model to understand the scaling rules within it. We show that tree species diversity is controlled by two mechanisms. One of these has a long history in the ecological literature ({open_quotes}resource partitioning{close_quotes} of the temporal variance in light levels), while the other is new (a mechanism similar to the {open_quotes}competition-colonization{close_quotes} trade-off, but operating across time rather than across space).
Research Organization:
Princeton Univ., NJ (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE, Washington, DC (United States)
DOE Contract Number:
FG02-92ER61469
OSTI ID:
10194896
Report Number(s):
DOE/ER/61469--1; ON: DE95003188
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English