Which metrics derived from airborne laser scanning are essential to measure the vertical profile of ecosystems?

In a recent perspective (Diversity and Distributions, 29, 39–50), ‘10 variables’ were proposed to measure vegetation structure from airborne laser scanning (ALS) for assessing species distributions and habitat suitability. We worry about this list because the variables predominantly represent variat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Diversity & distributions 2023-10, Vol.29 (10), p.1315-1320
Main Authors: Kissling, W. Daniel, Shi, Yifang
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Airborne lasers
Biodiversity
COMMENTARY
Datasets
Ecosystems
Forests
Kurtosis
Laser applications
Lasers
Leaves
Principal components analysis
Skewness
Standard deviation
Three dimensional models
Variables
Vegetation
Vegetation cover
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Summary:In a recent perspective (Diversity and Distributions, 29, 39–50), ‘10 variables’ were proposed to measure vegetation structure from airborne laser scanning (ALS) for assessing species distributions and habitat suitability. We worry about this list because the variables predominantly represent variation in vegetation height, the vertical variability of vegetation biomass is insufficiently captured, and variables of vegetation cover are ill-defined or not ecosystem agnostic. We urge for a better defined, more comprehensive and more balanced list, and for assessing which information from ALS point clouds is truly essential to measure the major dimensions of 3D vegetation structure within and across ecosystems and animal habitats. We think that the currently proposed ‘list of 10 ALS metrics’ is premature and that researchers and stakeholders should be cautious in adopting this list.
ISSN:1366-9516
1472-4642
DOI:10.1111/ddi.13760