Jo¿o Marcelo Braz¿o Prot¿zio

Spatial Pattern Analysis Applied to Plant Ecology: Zmt - Zentrum F¿r Marine Tropen¿kologieuniversit¿t Bremen - March 2007 Jo¿o Marcelo Braz¿o Prot¿zio

The spatial structure of a forest stand is an important signature of forest dynamics. Thelocal environment determines competition among the trees, growth, death and regeneration. Therefore, the spatial configuration of the individual trees in a forest stand can provide information about the underlying ecological processes at the site. This thesis focuses on the determination and analysis of the local constellation of individual trees (characterized by species, age, size etc.) in a forest stand. A large number of spatial statistical methods can be applied to this spatial pattern analysis. Besides using someclassical statistical methods, I propose two new methods for spatial analysis. First, I develop a new method for the spatial analysis of objects. Thatapproximates each individual tree as a circle, instead of a point, thus minimizing the bias ofthe classical methods. Finally, I proposed a new method, based on Wavelet Transform, to obtain spatial scale information aboutthe point processes occurring within a study site. By this, this approach goes beyond classical point pattern methods and is innovative.