PROJECT HISTORY, PURPOSE, METHODOLOGY AND SCOPE (summarized)
This executive summary is part of a two year project, which started in April 2006 and runs till March 2008. This report represents accomplishments during the first fiscal year, ending March 31, 2007.
The project aims to provide (1) a new remote sensing technology that allows economic creation or large-stem mapped areas across natural resources gradients, (2) insight into how individual-tree competitive interactions among trees species change across resource gradients, and (3) robust growth functions that can be incorporated into individual tree models.
This project will carry out basic research on competitive interactions among trees species, how these interactions affect growth, and how these interactions may vary across resource gradients in structurally complex mixed-species stands.
We will sample across a range of stand ages and disturbance histories to obtain a dataset that allows analysis of all the dominant tree species in our study area.
We will use a new generation, airborne, digital camera to acquire the high spatial resolution digital imagery at each sample stand.
The research will be conducted within mixed species stands of the Sub-Boreal Spruce (SBS) zone around Smithers, BC, and results will be applicable to sub-boreal forest of north central BC.
