Robert Schlicht
(Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, Kyushu University)

05/11/01, 13:30 at Room 3631 (6th floor of building 3 of the Faculty of Sciences)

Abstract: Tree regeneration in forests is strongly influenced by the spatial pattern of the canopy. Gaps in the canopy provide the environmental conditions smaller trees need to grow and establish themselves as canopy trees. By introducing a suitable measure for successive disturbances at neighboring sites, we can distinguish three types of gap expansion: (1) Directional expansion driven by global environmental conditions; (2) directional expansion caused by local processes; (3) gap expansion without direction. Two simple 1-dimensional models illustrate the analytical power of this approach. The method reveals structural differences between three models for forest gap dynamics (2-state model, 3-state model, and Shimagare/propagating-wave model) that an earlier study (based on the gap cover at a single time) was not able to detect.

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