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SUMMARY:Selective logging leaves persistent effects on the canopy structur
 e of a West Africa forest - Rafi Kent (Coomes Group)
DTSTART:20140110T130000Z
DTEND:20140110T132500Z
UID:TALK49497@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr Yoan Coudert
DESCRIPTION:Large areas of forest across the world are recovering after ag
 ricultural abandonment or selective logging. These areas are increasingly 
 recognized as important for biodiversity conservation and offsets for gree
 nhouse gas emissions. Airborne LiDAR remote sensing is a promising tool fo
 r detecting and assessing the recovery stage of disturbed forests\, especi
 ally in tropical regions\, where little information on forest disturbance 
 history is available. Here we analyze LiDAR data from a ~16km2 stretch of 
 forest in Sierra Leone\, West Africa\, which was selectively logged (1960 
 – 1989) in the west but is an old-growth forest in the east\, and compar
 e the emerging characteristics to measurements from permanent field plots 
 in the area.  We hypothesized that recovering forest would differ from old
 -growth forest in terms of canopy\, total area of canopy gaps\, and the ga
 p-size distribution\, even 24 years after timber harvesting. We found that
  recovering blocks of forest were slightly shorter and had a greater area 
 of canopy gaps within all height strata than old-growth forest\; they also
  had a greater number of large gaps and a greater number of gaps penetrati
 ng down to the forest floor.  We found that gap size distributions deviate
 d from the power-law functions reported in previous studies\, with substan
 tially fewer large gaps than predicted by a power-law function. Comparison
  to field measurements revealed that while relatively severe disturbances 
 were detectable by simple structural characteristics such as canopy height
  and gap fractions at the higher levels of the canopy\, less even areas th
 at were mildly disturbed showed significant differences when analyzing gap
  size distributions and gap fractions throughout the canopy\, all the way 
 to the forest floor. These analyses demonstrate that airborne LiDAR is a u
 seful tool for distinguishing old-growth from old-secondary forests at the
  subnational scale\, with implications for biodiversity conservation and c
 arbon assessments within protected areas.
LOCATION:Department of Plant Sciences\, Large Lecture Theatre
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