98th ESA Annual Meeting (August 4 -- 9, 2013)

OOS 4 - Seeing Ecology In Forest Inventories: What National Forest Inventories Can Tell Us About Forest Ecology

Monday, August 5, 2013: 1:30 PM-5:00 PM
101D, Minneapolis Convention Center
Organizer:
Daniel J. Johnson
Co-organizers:
Kai Zhu and Christopher W. Woodall
Moderator:
Charles H. Perry
The relatively recent development of digital forest inventories that sometimes span continents has empowered the exploration of novel ecological themes. The proposed session will highlight the many facets of the USDA Forest Service’s Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) database and resulting impacts to field of modern ecology. The session will provide a venue to showcase how this vast database contains valuable ecological information that will advance our understanding of macroecology, forest dynamics and our ability to predict the future of forests in the US. The proposed session will begin with (1) a synthesis of what the FIA database is and is not. This will be followed by (2) contributions on advancement of basic ecological science derived from the FIA data, which set the stage for (3) investigations of how the FIA will help us in the future to achieve conservation and management goals. This will include discussion of changes in tree ranges, climate scenarios, and integrated modeling of forest development. Current case studies are included to highlight these topics, and to offer insights on the ecological and conservation importance forests.
1:50 PM
Western North American landscapes offer few opportunities for high elevation tree species migration
David M. Bell, University of Wyoming; John B. Bradford, U.S. Geological Survey; William K. Lauenroth, University of Wyoming
2:10 PM
When a tree falls: Forest inventories illustrate how wood mechanical properties influence standing to down transitions in US forests
Brad Oberle, The George Washington University; Kiona Ogle, Arizona State University; Amy Zanne, The George Washington University; Christopher W. Woodall, USDA Forest Service
2:30 PM
2:50 PM
Predicting the dynamics of US forest distributions through data-constrained, individual-based demographic modelling
Mark C. Vanderwel, University of Florida; Vassily Lyutsarev, Microsoft Research; Drew W. Purves, Microsoft Research
3:10 PM
3:20 PM
Using forest inventory to understand climate change impact on tree populations
Kai Zhu, Duke University; Christopher W. Woodall, USDA Forest Service; Souparno Ghosh, Duke University; Alan E. Gelfand, Duke University; James Clark, Duke University
3:40 PM
The role of community dynamics in constraining regional-scale carbon cycle estimates: Assimilating forest inverntory data into the Ecosystem Demography model
Michael Dietze, Boston University; Brady S. Hardiman, Boston University; Joshua A. Mantooth, Boston University; Toni Viskari, Finnish Meteorological Institute
4:00 PM
FIA and environmental data to model tree range boundaries and potential changes in suitable habitats under climate change
Matthew P. Peters, Northern Research Station, USDA Forest Service; Stephen N. Matthews, The Ohio State University; Louis Iverson, Northern Research Station, USDA Forest Service; Anantha Prasad, Northern Research Station, USDA Forest Service
4:20 PM
Network analysis unravels patterns of species richness along a climatic gradient in Spanish forests
Mara Baudena, Utrecht University; Angel Sánchez, Universidad Carlos III; Co-Pierre Georg, Oxford University; Paloma Ruiz-Benito, Center of Forest Research (CIFOR-INIA); Miguel A. Zavala, University of Alcalá; Miguel Á. Rodriguez, University of Alcalá; Max Rietkerk, Utrecht University