Abstract
Quantification of site occupancy (or stand density) is central to developing reliable stand-level models for predicting forest growth and yield. Forest biometricians have long devoted, and continue to devote, a great deal of attention to the problem of quantifying competition in forest stands; stand density measures that are simple and direct to determine while being highly correlated with tree and stand growth and mortality are needed. Absolute (e.g. trees or basal area per unit area) and relative (i.e. related to a predetermined standard) measures of stand density have been used in modeling stand development. This chapter focuses on self thinning relationships (namely, Reineke’s stand density index, the 3/2 rule of self-thinning, and relative spacing), including methods for fitting maximum size-density relationships. The similarity among various stand density measures is shown and the efficacy of the measures for growth and yield prediction is discussed. A brief evaluation of the concepts underlying stand density measures concludes the chapter.
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