Analysis of the inflection points of height-diameter models

Abstract

The inflection point is an important feature of sigmoidal height-diameter (H-D) models. It is often cited as one of the properties favoring sigmoidal model forms. However, there are very few studies analyzing the inflection points of H-D models. The goals of this study were to theoretically and empirically examine the behaviors of inflection points of six common H-D models with a regional dataset. The six models were the Wykoff (WYK), Schumacher (SCH), Curtis (CUR), Hossfeld IV (HOS), von Bertalanffy-Richards (VBR), and Gompertz (GPZ) models. The models were first fitted in their base forms with tree species as random effects and were then expanded to include functional traits and spatial distribution. The distributions of the estimated inflection points were similar between the two-parameter models WYK, SCH, and CUR, but were different between the three-parameter models HOS, VBR, and GPZ. GPZ produced some of the largest inflection points. HOS and VBR produced concave H-D curves without inflection points for 12.7% and 39.7% of the tree species. Evergreen species or decreasing shade tolerance resulted in larger inflection points. The trends in the estimated inflection points of HOS and VBR were entirely opposite across the landscape. Furthermore, HOS could produce concave H-D curves for portions of the landscape. Based on the studied behaviors, the choice between two-parameter models may not matter. We recommend comparing several three-parameter model forms for consistency in estimated inflection points before deciding on one. Believing sigmoidal models to have inflection points does not necessarily mean that they will produce fitted curves with one. Our study highlights the need to integrate analysis of inflection points into modeling H-D relationships.