Abstract
Forest diversity assessments are typically conducted at stand scale. This traditional diversity assessment may provide substantial insight into overall stand structure but is limited with respect to describing within-stand variation, an important aspect of stand diversity. This article describes a method for assessing species and structural diversity at within-stand, neighbourhood scale.•Nearest neighbours are determined from mapped tree locations in field survey plots.•R codes (provided in appendices) are used to assist with determining species and structural diversity indices at a neighbourhood of 4 trees (a subject tree and the 3 nearest neighbours).•Neighbourhood structural diversity indices are compared against structural complexity index (SCI) in capturing within-stand variation.•Neighbourhood diversity indices, especially in managed stands, are useful for capturing spatial variation in species and structural diversity.
Highlights
Neighbourhood diversity values and spatial variations are derived from mapped tree locations in field survey plots
Where pi is the proportion of individuals in the ith species [2]
Where r is the number of tree species (r k + 1) and pij is the proportion of trees in jth species within a neighbourhood of k + 1 trees
Summary
Neighbourhood diversity values and spatial variations are derived from mapped tree locations in field survey plots. ARTICLE INFO Method name: Neighbourhood diversity indices Keywords: Tree neighbours, Spatial complexity/heterogeneity, Spatial scale, Stand structure The Shannon’s diversity index (H0) is commonly used to assess stand scale diversity [1]: Xr
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
