A general model of intra-annual tree growth using dendrometer bands.

ABSTRACT: Tree growth is an important indicator of forest health, productivity, and demography. Knowing precisely how trees' grow within a year, instead of across years, can lead to a finer understanding of the mechanisms that drive these larger patterns. The growing use of dendrometer bands in research forests has only rarely been used to measure growth at resolutions finer than yearly, but intra-annual growth patterns can be observed from dendrometer bands using precision digital calipers and weekly measurements. Here we present a workflow to help forest ecologists fit growth models to intra-annual measurements using standard optimization functions provided by the R platform. We explain our protocol, test uncertainty in parameter estimates with respect to sample sizes, extend the optimization prot

SUBMITTER: McMahon SM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4314258 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature