Tropical Forest Canopies Research

Introduction

As part of an ongoing research project to better understand the relationship between aspects of geodiversity and biodiversity a number of PhD projects have been working towards better characterisation of tree diversity from high resolution aerial photographic and remote sensing data. This work takes place mainly at the Tiputini Biodiversity Station in the Amazon of Ecuador and combines high resolution satellite imagery from the IKONOS and QUICKBIRD satellites and high resoltuion aerial and ground tethered aerial photography with plot and transect based sampling and identification of tree species. The projects aim to :

(a) Better characterise the variation in canopy structural complexity as an indicator of subcanopy environmental complexity and thus potentially diversity

(b) Map elements of tree taxonomic diversity from high resolution satellite imagery

(c) Provide an operational taxonomic key for the taxonomic identification of trees from high resolution aerial photography


Resources

Imagery collected over the tiputini biodiversity station is available here (requires Google Earth Version 4 or above).


DISTRIBUTION
Users are prohibited from any commercial, non-free resale, or redistribution without explicit written permission from Kings College London (mark.mulligan@kcl.ac.uk) Users should acknowledge Kings College London as the source used in the creation of any reports, publications, new data sets, derived products, or services resulting from the use of this data set. Kings College London also request reprints of any publications and notification of any redistributing efforts.
NO WARRANTY OR LIABILITY
Kings College London provides these data without any warranty of any kind whatsoever, either express or implied, including warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. Kings College London shall not be liable for incidental, consequential, or special damages arising out of the use of any data downloaded.

Accessed

times since November 2006