New Zealand Journal of Botany abstracts

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Test of a forest dynamics simulator in New Zealand

ROBERT L. DEVELICE*

Ecology Division, DSIR, Private Bag
Lower Hutt, New Zealand

Abstract A computer simulation model of forest dynamics is described and tested against observations from Fiordland, New Zealand. The model tracks the birth, growth, and death of individual trees and is driven by species-specific attributes of maximum age, height, and diameter. Recruitment is determined stochastically and on the basis of seed production indices and establishment requirements. Simple mathematical expressions are utilised and the number of assumptions is minimised. The reasonable agreement of the simulated trends and observation suggests that forest dynamics after landslides in Fiordland may be predicted on the basis of life history characteristics and stochastic events. Modelling of forest dynamics has wide scientific and management applications including: prediction, advancement of basic under- standing of forest dynamics, assistance in research planning, and information synthesis.

Keywords computer simulation; Fiordland; forest dynamics; forest succession; Leptospermum scoparium; life history; modelling; New Zealand; Nothofagus menziesii; Weinmannia racemosa

Received 2 June 1986; accepted 6 January 1988
New Zealand Journal of Botany, 1988, Vol. 26: 387-392
0028-825X/88/2603-O387S2.50/0 © Crown copyright 1988

PDF file of entire paper: medium quality (452K); (scanned from paper original: notes about this process)

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