Deciphering the fingerprint of disturbance on the three-dimensional structure of the world’s forests

Canopy gaps and the processes that generate them play an integral role in shaping the structure and dynamics of forests. However, it is only with recent advances in remote sensing technologies such as airborne laser scanning that studying canopy gaps at scale has become a reality. Consequently, we still lack an understanding of how the size distribution and spatial organization of canopy gaps varies among forests ecosystems, nor have we determined whether these emergent properties can be reconciled with existing theories of forest dynamics. Here, I outline a roadmap for integrating remote sensing with field data and individual-based models to build a comprehensive picture of how environmental constraints and disturbance regimes shape the three-dimensional structure of the world’s forests.

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Tommaso’s research focuses on the processes behind the structure and function of the world’s forests, and how these might respond to rapid environmental change. Tommaso, a NERC Independent Research Fellow and Lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Bristol, UK, brings his ideas together in his Tansley insight, ‘Deciphering the fingerprint of disturbance on the three-dimensional structure of the world’s forests’.