Assessing the utility of lidar remote sensing technology to identify mule deer winter habitat

Abstract

Winter habitat for mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) is a critical concern throughout interior British Columbia, Canada. In winter, mule deer require a food source of twigs and woody browse and face significant winter snow cover. A range of studies have established that good winter range for mule deer reduces the impact of a negative energy balance by providing adequate food, good vegetative cover, and shallow snow. Generally, sites with old Douglas-fir and moderate to high canopy cover on warmer aspects and moderately steep slopes are preferred, resulting in a suite of structural stand conditions, which can be used to map mule deer winter range habitat within the interior Douglas-fir range. The increased availability of light detection and ranging (lidar) data to management agencies and the recent adoption of lidar technology by forestry agencies allow us to assess the capacity of this technology to map some variables important to winter mule deer habitat suitability, using criteria similar to those defined using conventional aerial photography. Results indicate that lidar-derived solar radiation regime, elevation, and overstorey cover are all useful attributes in decision-tree models relating lidar to conventionally derived descriptors of mule deer winter habitat. These lidar-derived models describe up to 75% of the variance in overall stand structure and confirm that this technology is a viable tool which can be used to assess habitat throughout this region.