TY  - JOUR
AU  - Goulamoussene, Y.
AU  - Bedeau, C.
AU  - Descroix, L.
AU  - Linguet, L.
AU  - Herault, B.
PY  - 2017//
TI  - Environmental control of natural gap size distribution in tropical forests
T2  - Biogeosciences
JO  - Biogeosciences
SP  - 353
EP  - 364
VL  - 14
IS  - 2
N2  - Natural disturbances are the dominant form of forest regeneration and dynamics in unmanaged tropical forests. Monitoring the size distribution of treefall gaps is important to better understand and predict the carbon budget in response to land use and other global changes. In this study, we model the size frequency distribution of natural canopy gaps with a discrete power law distribution. We use a Bayesian framework to introduce and test, using Monte Carlo Markov chain and Kuo-Mallick algorithms, the effect of local physical environment on gap size distribution. We apply our methodological framework to an original light detecting and ranging dataset in which natural forest gaps were delineated over 30 000 ha of unmanaged forest. We highlight strong links between gap size distribution and environment, primarily hydrological conditions and topography, with large gaps being more frequent on floodplains and in wind-exposed areas. In the future, we plan to apply our methodological framework on a larger scale using satellite data. Additionally, although gap size distribution variation is clearly under environmental control, variation in gap size distribution in time should be tested against climate variability. © Author(s) 2017.
UR  - https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-85010433814&doi=10.5194%2fbg-14-353-2017&partnerID=40&md5=06c603d1403ff709e3a3404a38bc4bc6
L1  - http://php.ecofog.gf/refbase/files/goulamoussene/2017/729_Goulamoussene_etal2017.pdf
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.5194/bg-14-353-2017
N1  - Export Date: 7 February 2017
ID  - Goulamoussene_etal2017
ER  -