Potential of a national monitoring program for forests to assess change in high-latitude ecosystems.

摘要: Broad-scale monitoring in Alaska has become of increasing interest due to uncertainty about the potential impacts changing climate on high-latitude ecosystems. The Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program is a national for all public private forestlands US, but not currently implemented boreal region Alaska. We provide an overview strengths weaknesses FIA system impact change Alaska's species, communities, primary strength scientifically rigorous design-based statistical estimation method that produces estimates forest attributes with known sampling error quantifiable measurement error. include low power small area estimates, lack spatial context contiguity, difficulty inferring causality factors when changes monitored are detected. Climate expected many components ecosystems, most indicators direction magnitude difficult predict because complex interactions among components. Status trend information provided by could be helpful conservation decisions includes abundance rarity vascular plants, invasive biomass carbon content vegetation, shifting vegetation species distribution, disturbance frequency, type, impact, wildlife habitat characteristics. Because unique such as level infrastructure, modifications used conterminous US have been proposed Remote sensing data would play greater role meeting objectives, intensity field plots reduced. Coordination other national, regional, local efforts provides increased understanding ecosystems at multiple scales.