Environmental drivers of spatial variation in tropical forest canopy height: Insights from NASA's GEDI spaceborne LiDAR

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Liu, Shaoqing; Csillik, Ovidiu; Ordway, Elsa M.; Chang, Li - Ling; Longo, Marcos; Keller, Michael; Moorcroft, Paul R.
• 署名单位: Harvard University; National Aeronautics & Space Administration (NASA); NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL); California Institute of Technology; Wake Forest University; University of California System; University of California Los Angeles; State University System of Florida; Florida State University; United States Department of Energy (DOE); Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; United States Department of Agriculture (USDA); United States Forest Service
• 刊物名称: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0027-13162
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2401755122
• 发表日期: 2025-03-03
• 关键词: aboveground carbon; global patterns; climate; elevation; amazon; deforestation; PRODUCTIVITY; biodiversity; degradation; allometry

摘要

forest carbon storage and forest ecosystem responses to climate variability and change. Previous studies have analyzed environmental drivers influencing spatial variation in canopy height at landscape- to- regional scales; however, far less is known about the environmental determinants underlying regional and global scale variation in forest canopy height. Using the canopy height metrics products from Global Ecosystem instrument specifically designed to characterize forest structure, we analyze the environmental correlates of spatial variation of global tropical forest canopy height. Our study demonstrates that climate, topography, and soil properties account for 75% of the variation in tropical forest canopy height. Elevation, dry season length, and solar radiation are the most important drivers in determining canopy height both locally and regionally. These results emphasize the vulnerability of tropical forest structure to ongoing changes in the earth's climate and provide a valuable empirical baseline for tropical forest management.