The investigators report, “ the canopy vertical distribution information was consistently found to be the strongest predictor of species richness, and this was predicted best when stratified into guilds dominated by forest, scrub, suburban and wetland species”.
Summing up their interesting findings, Dr Scott Goetz and his team write, “ The lidar metrics were also consistently better predictors than traditional remotely sensed variables such as canopy cover, indicating that lidar provides a valuable resource for biodiversity research applications”.
Source: Scott Goetz, Daniel Steinberg, Ralph Dubayah and Bryan Blair. Laser remote sensing of canopy habitat heterogeneity as a predictor of bird species richness in an eastern temperate forest, USA. Remote Sensing of Environment, Volume 108, Issue 3, 15 June 2007, Pages 254-263.
image source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Lidar_P1270901.jpg
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