Future directions for forest structural diversity research: A synthesis of discussions from the May 2020 Forest Structural Diversity – NEON Workshop

Background/Question/Methods: Forest structural diversity – the arrangement, complexity, and biological variation of vegetation structure within ecosystems – is anticipated to be closely related to forest ecosystem processes. However, structural diversity is poorly understood due to a lack of efficient and feasible measures. Emerging frontiers in remote sensing and advances in data science are merging to provide novel opportunities to understand structural diversity in the context of forest ecology, however priority research questions for this new field have not been organized. During May of 2020, over fifty scientists and managers from interdisciplinary backgrounds met for a three-day workshop in partnership with the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) to shape future directions on forest structural diversity research. The goals achieved by workshop participants were 1) establishing a consensus definition of “structural diversity”, 2) identifying key research questions about structural diversity and its relationship to ecological processes, and 3) providing training aimed at early-career scientists with NEON remote sensing products to measure structural diversity.

Results/Conclusions: A preliminary definition describes structural diversity as the arrangement, complexity, and biological variation of vegetation structure in forests canopies. Workshop participants learned how to measure structural diversity from different types of LiDAR and other remote sensing data products from NEON’s Aerial Observation Platform. A preliminary synthesis of priority research includes understanding different ways of measuring structural diversity that is clearly demonstrated by open source data science tools, understanding the abiotic and biotic drivers of structural diversity across forest macrosystems, and how structural diversity as a novel dimension of biodiversity can be used as a predictor of ecosystem functions and services. This gathering of scientists from diverse backgrounds will determine how to harness the ecological data revolution to coordinate research efforts on structural diversity in forest ecosystems across institutions and countries.