Synthesizing multiple data sources to understand the population and community ecology of California trees

摘要: In this work, I answer timely questions regarding tree growth, tree survival, and community change in California tree species, using a variety of sophisticated statistical and remote sensing tools. In Chapter 1, I address tree growth for a single tree species with a thorough explanation of hierarchical state-space models for forest inventory data. Understanding tree growth as a function of tree size is important for a multitude of ecological and management applications. Determining what limits growth is of central interest, and forest inventory permanent plots are an abundant source of long-term information but are highly complex. Observation error and multiple sources of shared variation make these data challenging to use for growth estimation. I account for these complexities and incorporate potential limiting factors into a hierarchical state-space model. I estimate the diameter growth of white fir in the Sierra Nevada of …