Difference between revisions of "Arne Pommerening's Forest Biometrics & Quantitative Ecology Lab"

Revision as of 14:39, 9 May 2012

CRANCOD - A Program for the Analysis and Reconstruction of Spatial Forest Structure

It is widely acknowledged that forest structure is a driving factor behind growth, competition and birth & death processes which, in return, influences the structural composition of woodlands. Also any impact on forests is primarily a change of forest structure.

In the last few decades an impressive number of structural indices have been developed to quantify spatial forest structure and it has also been suggested that they can be used as surrogate measures for quantifying biodiversity (Pommerening, 2002). Of particular interest in this regard is the development of a family of individual tree neighbourhood-based indices, which are measures of small-scale variations in tree positions, species and dimensions, developed by Gadow and colleagues at Göttingen University (Germany). Especially when expressed as frequency distributions these indices offer valuable information on spatial woodland structure.

The CRANCOD program is a scientific laboratory for analysing and experimenting with structural indices and second-order characteristics. CRANCOD has been designed for use with large research plots with full enumeration of trees but in addition offers the opportunity to analyse complete inventory data consisting of multiple sample plots of circular or rectangular shape and varying plot size based on a systematic grid. The program has in built flexibility with the user able to select the number of neighbour trees and choose between six different methods of edge correction. CRANCOD can even be used to analyse research plots/inventories for which spatial information has not been recorded.

The integrative sampling simulator ISIS allows the simulation of systematic inventories with varying plot geometry.

Saving individual tree results in addition to the summary files enables you to carry out individual tree based follow-up investigations. A special visualisation tool allows the user to visually explore structural indices. Tree species codings and colours can be flexibly edited externally. A number of language options allow optimal adaptation of the program in different countries.

As with any Java application CRANCOD can also be used on Unix, Linux and Macintosh computers. The philosophy and objectives of the program are described in greater detail in Pommerening (2006). This core version of CRANCOD is a public domain software. However, the program is protected by intellectual property rights and users are expected to acknowledge CRANCOD and its author when publishing results.

Author, copyrights and contact: Prof. Dr. Arne Pommerening, Bern University of Applied Sciences, School of Agricultural, Forest and Food Sciences. Email: arne.pommerening@bfh.ch

Software version: 1.3

References relating to CRANCOD

Pommerening, A., 2002. Approaches to quantifying forest structures. Forestry 75, 305-324. [[Download|Structure.pdf] Pdf file]
Pommerening, A., 2006. Evaluating structural indices by reversing forest structural analysis. Forest Ecology and Management 224, 266–277. [Pdf file]
Pommerening, A. and Stoyan, D., 2006. Edge-correction needs in estimating indices of spatial forest structure. Can. J. For. Res. 36, 1723–1739. [Pdf file]
Pommerening, A. and Stoyan, D., 2008. Reconstructing spatial tree point patterns from nearest neighbour summary statistics measured in small subwindows. Can. J. For. Res. 38, 1110–1122. [Pdf file]
Motz, K., Sterba, H. and Pommerening, A., 2010. Sampling measures of tree diversity. Forest Ecology and Management. 260, 1985–1996. [Pdf file]
Pommerening, A., Gonçalves, A. C. and Rodríguez-Soalleiro, R., 2011. Species mingling and diameter differentiation as second-order characteristics. Allg. Forst- u. J.-Ztg. 182, 115-129. [Pdf file]
Gonçalves, A. C. and Pommerening, A., 2011. Spatial dynamics of cone production in Mediterranean climates: A case study of Pinus pinea L. in Portugal. Forest Ecology and Management 266, 83–93. [Pdf file]

System requirements

• Windows XP, Vista, 7
• Mac OS X
• Equivalent Linux version
• Java Runtime Environment (JRE)

Installation

1. Download Crancod.jar
2. Launch the CRANCOD program using the JRE (javaw.exe in Windows)

Feedback

The developer of the CRANCOD software is particularly interested in feedback concerning any aspect of the program to improve its functionality and usefulness in future versions. Please report your feedback to arne.pommerening@bfh.ch, subject Crancod.

Disclaimer

The CRANCOD software and all its libraries and algorithms have been prepared with great care. However, neither the developer nor Bern University of Applied Sciences can be made liable in the unlikely case of damage caused to your computer while using CRANCOD or incorrect outputs.