Predicting the potential distribution of rain‐forest structural characteristics

. Models are reviewed that predict the potential distribution of classes of rain-forest structural characteristics in relation to indices of climate and soil parent material. A description is given of the field survey undertaken to examine these relations in the Wet Tropics of Queensland, Australia. The predicted probabilities are compared with the observed values and the extent of correspondence between the two data sets examined. Environmental relations based on finer-scaled landscape processes are proposed to explain the mismatches. An index of catchment hydrology is described that represents the most feasible additional independent variable for spatial extension purposes.

[1]  W. T. Williams,et al.  A floristic framework of Australian rainforests , 1984 .

[2]  A. R. Palmer,et al.  Predicting the distribution of plant communities using annual rainfall and elevation: an example from southern Africa , 1992 .

[3]  Brendan Mackey,et al.  Assessing the representativeness of the wet tropics of Queensland world heritage property , 1989 .

[4]  K. R. W. Brewer,et al.  The use of gradient directed transects or gradsects in natural resource surveys , 1985 .

[5]  A. Spain.  Influence of environmental conditions and some soil chemical properties on the carbon and nitrogen contents of some tropical Australian rainforest soils , 1990 .

[6]  H. Nix,et al.  The climatic factor in Australian grassland ecology , 1970 .

[7]  J. Walker,et al.  Australian Soil and Land Survey Field Handbook , 1984 .

[8]  I. Moore,et al.  Digital terrain modelling: A review of hydrological, geomorphological, and biological applications , 1991 .

[9]  Michael F. Hutchinson,et al.  Assessing representativeness of places for conservation reservation and heritage listing , 1988 .

[10]  W. T. Williams,et al.  The value of structural features in tropical forest typology , 1976 .

[11]  Michael F. Hutchinson,et al.  A continental hydrological assessment of a new grid-based digital elevation model of Australia , 1991 .

[12]  T. Givnish.  Leaf and Canopy Adaptations in Tropical Forests , 1984 .

[13]  L. Webb,et al.  A Physiognomic Classification of Australian Rain Forests , 1959 .

[14]  Jeremy Russell-Smith,et al.  Classification, species richness, and environmental relations of monsoon rain forest in northern Australia , 1991 .

[15]  T. Headland.  Ecosystemic change in a Philippine tropical rainforest and its effect on a Negrito foraging society , 1988 .

[16]  A. J. Bayes,et al.  Algorithms for monotonic functions and their application to ecological studies in vegetation science , 1991 .

[17]  J. Tracey.  The Vegetation of the Humid Tropical Region of North Queensland. , 1983 .

[18]  C. Raunkiær,et al.  The life forms of plants and statistical plant geography , 1934 .

[19]  J. Leathwick,et al.  Forest pattern, climate and vulcanism in central North Island, New Zealand , 1992 .

[20]  H. Tan,et al.  Habitat‐related variation in tree leaf form in four tropical forest types on Pulau Ubin, Singapore , 1991 .

[21]  L. Webb.  Environmental Relationships of the Structural Types of Australian Rain Forest Vegetation , 1968 .

[22]  G. E. Dolph,et al.  Variation in Leaf Size with Respect to Climate in the Tropics of the Western Hemisphere , 1980 .

[23]  P. Grubb.  Control of Forest Growth and Distribution on Wet Tropical Mountains: with Special Reference to Mineral Nutrition , 1977 .

[24]  Mike P. Austin,et al.  Vegetation survey design for conservation: Gradsect sampling of forests in North-eastern New South Wales , 1989 .

[25]  S. K. Jenson,et al.  Extracting topographic structure from digital elevation data for geographic information-system analysis , 1988 .

[26]  J. M. Cornelius,et al.  The distribution of vascular plant species and guilds in space and time along a desert gradient , 1991 .

[27]  Brendan Mackey,et al.  A spatial analysis of the environmental relations of rainforest structural types , 1993 .