Using sphere packing models to explain the structure of forests
Explaining the complex structure of tropical forests is one of the great challenges in ecology. An issue of special interest is the distribution of different sizes of trees, something which is of particular relevance for biomass estimates. A team of modellers from the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), working together with research partners, has now developed a new method which can be used to explain the tree size distribution in natural forests. To do so, the scientists use principles from stochastic geometry, as they have reported in a contribution to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS, Early Edition). Using this approach, it is possible to assess the structure of natural forests across the world more quickly, and produce more accurate biomass estimates.