Classifying and Mapping Potential Distribution of Forest Types Using a Finite Mixture Model

Attorre, Fabio; Francesconi, Fabio; Sanctis, Michele De; Alfó, Marco; Martella, Francesca; Valenti, Roberto; Vitale, Marcello

doi:10.1007/s12224-012-9139-8

Cited by 18 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Although Q. robur extends to high latitudes (up to 60° N -Repo et al 2008), it is often limited by short vegetative periods and cold damage (Jensen 2000). Our findings are consistent with those of Attorre et al (2012) who reported that the presence of Q. robur was correlated with the warm temperatures occurring in temperate areas of Italy, which suggests a preference of the species for relatively low altitudes. In our study, this results in a geographical disjunction between Q. petraea (restricted to cold sites) and Q. robur (dominating warm areas at low and medium altitude).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Environmental niche and distribution of six deciduous tree species in the Spanish Atlantic region

Roces‐Díaz¹,

Jíménez-Alfaro²,

Álvarez‐Álvarez³

et al. 2015

iForest

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© iForest -Biogeosciences and Forestry IntroductionThe temperate mid-latitude ecozone of the northern hemisphere is mainly distributed in the Atlantic regions of North America and Europe and also in central Europe (Schultz 2005). The climax vegetation of this ecozone consists of temperate deciduous forests, which dominate from sea level to the subalpine zone. These ecosystems comprise some of the main components of European landscapes (Meeus 1995) and provide the society with important flow of services (MA 2005, Harrison et al. 2010). The main ecosystem services provided by forests are regulation processes, such as soil protection, climate, etc., although provision of cultural services is also important.The distribution of tree species in Europe is mainly determined by climatic factors (Svenning & Skov 2004, despite the effect of historical factors such as the presence of glacial refuges (Muñoz Sobrino et al. 2006, Willner et al. 2009) and naturalization of species beyond their former range. The dominant forest tree species in the temperate mid-latitude ecozone are taxonomically related, most belonging to the Fagaceae family. These species require a minimum of 120 days per year with an average temperature above 10 °C, and most of them grow in areas where winter is shorter than 4 months (Walter 1979) and frost damage is a secondary factor. Although it has been suggested that minimum temperature is one of the main determinants for the growth and development of native trees (Sykes et al. 1996), other climatic variables and soil factors are also expected to shape the distribution of tree species (Ashcroft et al. 2011).Several attempts have been made to characterize the ecological niche and spatial distribution of forest tree species in Europe (Sykes et al. 1996, Brus et al. 2011, Casalegno et al. 2011. However, biogeographical regions differ in terms of historical and climatic factors. A better understanding of species-environment relationships requires data sources spanning over large areas with high spatial resolution (e.g., National Forest Inventories -NFI), to be used for the development of climatic models, with the aim of analyzing particular areas and assessing the influence of environmental conditions. Computing species distribution models (SDMsGuisan & Thuiller 2005, Elith & Leathwick 2009) applied on such data may be especially useful for defining the environmental niche of tree species and for assessing their potential distribution at regional scales.In this study, we applied SDMs on species occurrence data from the Spanish NFI to compare the climatic niche of six European tree species in the Atlantic region, at the southern distribution limit of temperate deciduous forests in Europe. The studied region is characterized by an oceanic and relatively warm climate and representing a unique environmental zone in Europe (the Lusitanian zone, according to Metzger et al. 2005). The study area was the Autonomous Community of Asturias, one of the most densely forested areas of the Iberian peninsula, where deciduous...

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Environmental niche and distribution of six deciduous tree species in the Spanish Atlantic region

Roces‐Díaz¹,

Jíménez-Alfaro²,

Álvarez‐Álvarez³

et al. 2015

iForest

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“…), or rules for choosing one type as “present” from probabilistic predictions (Hemsing & Bryn ; Attorre et al. ; Reger et al. ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, the use of initial model probabilities is not fully justified and has been avoided in more recent studies (Hemsing & Bryn ; Attorre et al. ; Reger et al. ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This critique was partly due to misunderstandings, and partly due to a lack of mathematical formulation of the concept (Loidi et al 2010;Somodi et al 2012). Recently, several papers have presented PNV estimations using formal methods (Hemsing & Bryn 2012;Fischer et al 2013;Attorre et al 2014;Reger et al 2014) and maps showing the most likely PNV type at any given location. However, there are two reasons why this approach may lead to oversimplification.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…One possible reason is that the synthesis of predictions of individual vegetation types is a major challenge. So far, PNV models used a variety of methods to achieve a single outcome per location; including methods that generate inherently categorical outcomes (Fischer 1990;Fischer et al 2013), the determination of thresholds to consider a type as "present" (Bittner et al 2011), or rules for choosing one type as "present" from probabilistic predictions (Hemsing & Bryn 2012;Attorre et al 2014;Reger et al 2014). In some studies, the predicted vegetation type with the highest probability per location was selected (Breziecki et al 1993;Tichy 1999;Liu et al 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Implementation and application of multiple potential natural vegetation models – a case study of Hungary

Somodi

Molnár

Czúcz

et al. 2017

J Vegetation Science

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QuestionsMultiple Potential Natural Vegetation (MPNV) is a framework for the probabilistic and multilayer representation of potential vegetation in an area. How can an MPNV model be implemented and synthesized for the full range of vegetation types across a large spatial domain such as a country? What additional ecological and practical information can be gained compared to traditional Potential Natural Vegetation (PNV) estimates? Location Hungary MethodsMPNV was estimated by modelling the occurrence probabilities of individual vegetation types using gradient boosting models (GBM). Vegetation data from the Hungarian Actual Habitat Database (MÉTA) and information on the abiotic background (climatic data, soil characteristics, hydrology) were used as inputs to the models. To facilitate MPNV interpretation a new technique for model synthesis (rescaling) enabling comprehensive visual presentation (synthetic maps) was developed which allows for a comparative view of the potential distribution of individual vegetation types. ResultsThe main result of MPNV modelling is a series of raw and rescaled probability maps of individual vegetation types for Hungary. Raw probabilities best suit within-type analyses, while rescaled estimations can also be compared across vegetation types. The latter create a synthetic overview of a location's PNV as a ranked list of vegetation types, and make the comparison of actual and potential landscape composition possible. For example, a representation of forest vs grasslands in MPNV revealed a high level of overlap of the potential range of the two formations in Hungary. ConclusionThe MPNV approach allows for viewing the potential vegetation composition of locations in far more detail than the PNV approach. Rescaling the probabilities estimated by the models allows easy access to the results by making potential presence of vegetation types with different data structure comparable for queries and synthetic maps. The wide range of applications identified for MPNV (conservation and restoration prioritisation, landscape evaluation) suggests that the PNV concept with the extension towards vegetation distributions is useful both for research and applications.

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Climatic marginality: a new metric for the susceptibility of tree species to warming exemplified by Fagus sylvatica (L.) and Ellenberg’s quotient

et al. 2015

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Classifying and Mapping Potential Distribution of Forest Types Using a Finite Mixture Model

Cited by 18 publications

References 40 publications

Environmental niche and distribution of six deciduous tree species in the Spanish Atlantic region

Environmental niche and distribution of six deciduous tree species in the Spanish Atlantic region

Implementation and application of multiple potential natural vegetation models – a case study of Hungary

Climatic marginality: a new metric for the susceptibility of tree species to warming exemplified by Fagus sylvatica (L.) and Ellenberg’s quotient

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