RUI: The Analysis of Three-dimensional Spatial Information of Tree and Forest Canopy Structure: A Planning Grant

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Forest canopy communities are important in maintaining the diversity, resiliency, and functioning of the ecosystems they inhabit. With the increasing interest and amounts of data on forest canopies that are resulting from new access techniques, ecologists require the development of tools to manage and analyze their data and a means for comparing data from disparate studies. Ecologists will need to deal with: 1) new types of data, 2) a great deal more data, and 3) the necessity of sharing data among researchers who have separate research questions. The project will bring together forest canopy researchers ("domain scientist"), quantitative scientists, and computer scientists to work towards establishing methods to collect, store, display, analyze, and interpret three-dimensional spatial data relating to tree crowns and tree canopies. This award will support the following planning activities to: 1) compile an array of research questions and needs that involve canopy structure from domain scientists; 2) examine potentially applicable information models and software tools that are in used in allied fields; and 3) develop conceptual models and recommendations for the types of format of information and analyses necessary to answer research questions posed by forest canopy researchers. Anticipated products include: a specifications list of questions and needsof domain scientists; and annotated compilation of potential tools from allied fields; an information model that will be tested with data collected from a forested study site were we can gain access to the canopy with a large construction crane; and an explicit set of steps to implement the model and generate the methods to collect and analyze three- dimensional spatial data. This award is being jointly supported by the Ecological Studies and the Database Activities in the Biological Sciences programs.