How big is your plot?

 
"The final plot size will be 25.6 ha (320 m x 800 m), with 10.2 ha completed as of 2009. All woody stems (trees and shrubs) are mapped at dbh (1.37 m). Canopy trees are generally 100 cm to 200 cm dbh."

All woody stems?!?

This week we are hosting two folks involved in the Yosemite Forest Dynamics Plot project, where one can find such a plot. Be sure and scroll down that web page to see what their (amazingly intense) data look like.

This project is a great example of the sort of critically-important but hard-to-fund-forever (tho' that is the plan) long-term projects required to truly understand forest dynamics, like why the number of really huge trees is declining.

The BBC did a nice 5-minute video on it, Mapping America's Giant Trees, filmed in the Yosemite forest, interviewing the P.I., Dr. James Lutz.

Our house guests are in town for a Fire Science Symposium at Yosemite NP this week. It's not every day you get to idly chat with house guests about LIDAR and forest ecology--nice!

And even Max, our local bobcat, kindly stopped by (being in the neighborhood) to say hello.

=)

biobabbler