The Self-Thinning Surface

By Huiquan Bi. Forestry sciences, 2001

72 citations recorded by the source corpus.

This article introduces a generalized expression of the self-thinning rule, B = KSα Nβ, where B is stand biomass per unit area, N is stand density, S is relative site index, and K, α and β are parameters. On log scales, this equation becomes a self-thinning surface that defines a density-dependent upper frontier of stand biomass over a gradient of site productivity for a given species. This equation is formulated for parameter estimation as a stochastic frontier function with two error components that have different distributional properties. As an example, maximum likelihood estimates of the self-thinning surface and its confidence envelope were shown for Pinus radiata (D. Don). Furthermore, site occupancy was estimated through one of the error components of the stochastic frontier function. The conditional response of mortality at any given site occupancy was revealed by using regression quantiles. Light mortality was associated with increases in site occupancy, while heavy mortality caused a reduction in site occupancy. Changes in the estimated site occupancy had a linear relationship with changes in log stand density. The dynamic interplay between site occupancy and mortality, together with the random external effects on the self-thinning frontier, was suggested to drive the growth trajectories of individual stands during stand growth and self-thinning. Consequently, individual stands seldom travel along their self-thinning frontiers but are more likely to converge toward them during the self-thinning phase of stand development. FOR. SCI. 47(3):361–370.

Subfields: Environmental Engineering, Global and Planetary Change, Nature and Landscape Conservation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1678ef0a90c740003f184826b11dfd50a98b2c2d

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In Environmental Engineering

In Global and Planetary Change

In Nature and Landscape Conservation

Citations in the corpus

A comparison of alternative methods for estimating the self-thinning boundary line (2005, unknown): “…the maximum size–density relationship by taking into account site-occupancy due to density-dependent growth and mortality within individual stands and the effects of external factors that take place at random over space and time on the frontier (Guo and Rundel 1998; Bi et al. 2000; Bi 2001).”
Forest Growth and Yield Modeling (2011, methodology): “Although data intensive, most models often explain a limited 154 CH 8 MORTALITY amount of variation.”
Do competition-density rule and self-thinning rule agree? (2014, methodology): “Bi (2001), for example, found that changes with site productivity were 11 % of magnitude of the range for species.”