Background: The importance of structurally diverse forests for the conservation of biodiversity and provision of a wide range of ecosystem services has been widely recognised. However, tools to quantify structural div...Background: The importance of structurally diverse forests for the conservation of biodiversity and provision of a wide range of ecosystem services has been widely recognised. However, tools to quantify structural diversity of forests in an objective and quantitative way across many forest types and sites are still needed, for example to support biodiversity monitoring. The existing approaches to quantify forest structural diversity are based on small geographical regions or single forest types, typically using only small data sets.Results: Here we developed an index of structural diversity based on National Forest Inventory(NFI) data of BadenWurttemberg, Germany, a state with 1.3 million ha of diverse forest types in different ownerships. Based on a literature review, 11 aspects of structural diversity were identified a priori as crucially important to describe structural diversity. An initial comprehensive list of 52 variables derived from National Forest Inventory(NFI) data related to structural diversity was reduced by applying five selection criteria to arrive at one variable for each aspect of structural diversity. These variables comprise 1) quadratic mean diameter at breast height(DBH), 2) standard deviation of DBH, 3) standard deviation of stand height, 4) number of decay classes, 5) bark-diversity index, 6) trees with DBH ≥ 40 cm, 7) diversity of flowering and fructification, 8) average mean diameter of downed deadwood, 9) mean DBH of standing deadwood, 10) tree species richness and 11) tree species richness in the regeneration layer. These variables were combined into a simple,additive index to quantify the level of structural diversity, which assumes values between 0 and 1. We applied this index in an exemplary way to broad forest categories and ownerships to assess its feasibility to analyse structural diversity in large-scale forest inventories.Conclusions: The forest structure index presented here can be derived in a similar way from standard inventory variables for most other large-scale forest inventories to provide important information about biodiversity relevant forest conditions and thus provide an evidence-base for forest management and planning as well as reporting.展开更多
Monodisperse aerosols are essential in many applications, such as filter testing, aerosol instrument calibration, and experiments for validating models. This paper describes the design principle, construction, and per...Monodisperse aerosols are essential in many applications, such as filter testing, aerosol instrument calibration, and experiments for validating models. This paper describes the design principle, construction, and performance of a monodisperse-aerosol generation system that comprises an atomizer, virtual impactor, microcontroller-based isokinetic probe, wind tunnel, and velocity measurement device. The size distribution of the produced monodisperse aerosols was determined by an optical particle counter. The effects of atomizer characteristics, the rates of minor and major flow, and solution criteria were investigated. It was found that all these parameters affect the generation of monodisperse aerosol. Finally, the expected geometric standard deviation （〈1.25） of monodisperse aerosol particles was obtained with the most suitable atomizer for 10% oleic acid in ethyl alcohol solution with 5%-15% minor flow, where the ratio between the nozzle-to-probe distance and acceleration-nozzle-exit diameter was 0.66. The con- structed monodisperse-aerosol-generation system can be used for instrumental calibration and aerosol research.展开更多
基金supported by a grant from the Ministry of Science,Research and the Arts of Baden-Württemberg(7533-10-5-78)to Jürgen BauhusFelix Storch received additional support through the BBW ForWerts Graduate Program
文摘Background: The importance of structurally diverse forests for the conservation of biodiversity and provision of a wide range of ecosystem services has been widely recognised. However, tools to quantify structural diversity of forests in an objective and quantitative way across many forest types and sites are still needed, for example to support biodiversity monitoring. The existing approaches to quantify forest structural diversity are based on small geographical regions or single forest types, typically using only small data sets.Results: Here we developed an index of structural diversity based on National Forest Inventory(NFI) data of BadenWurttemberg, Germany, a state with 1.3 million ha of diverse forest types in different ownerships. Based on a literature review, 11 aspects of structural diversity were identified a priori as crucially important to describe structural diversity. An initial comprehensive list of 52 variables derived from National Forest Inventory(NFI) data related to structural diversity was reduced by applying five selection criteria to arrive at one variable for each aspect of structural diversity. These variables comprise 1) quadratic mean diameter at breast height(DBH), 2) standard deviation of DBH, 3) standard deviation of stand height, 4) number of decay classes, 5) bark-diversity index, 6) trees with DBH ≥ 40 cm, 7) diversity of flowering and fructification, 8) average mean diameter of downed deadwood, 9) mean DBH of standing deadwood, 10) tree species richness and 11) tree species richness in the regeneration layer. These variables were combined into a simple,additive index to quantify the level of structural diversity, which assumes values between 0 and 1. We applied this index in an exemplary way to broad forest categories and ownerships to assess its feasibility to analyse structural diversity in large-scale forest inventories.Conclusions: The forest structure index presented here can be derived in a similar way from standard inventory variables for most other large-scale forest inventories to provide important information about biodiversity relevant forest conditions and thus provide an evidence-base for forest management and planning as well as reporting.
文摘Monodisperse aerosols are essential in many applications, such as filter testing, aerosol instrument calibration, and experiments for validating models. This paper describes the design principle, construction, and performance of a monodisperse-aerosol generation system that comprises an atomizer, virtual impactor, microcontroller-based isokinetic probe, wind tunnel, and velocity measurement device. The size distribution of the produced monodisperse aerosols was determined by an optical particle counter. The effects of atomizer characteristics, the rates of minor and major flow, and solution criteria were investigated. It was found that all these parameters affect the generation of monodisperse aerosol. Finally, the expected geometric standard deviation （〈1.25） of monodisperse aerosol particles was obtained with the most suitable atomizer for 10% oleic acid in ethyl alcohol solution with 5%-15% minor flow, where the ratio between the nozzle-to-probe distance and acceleration-nozzle-exit diameter was 0.66. The con- structed monodisperse-aerosol-generation system can be used for instrumental calibration and aerosol research.
