RForMen: R Forest Mensuration

Our Goal: RForMen is a package of functions for performing data manipulation and analysis in R environment according to quantitative techniques used in Forest Mensuration and Forest Quantitative Ecology.

RForMen will have 3 basic compenents that should be in the same pacage because we may need functions of the different components to do a data analysis in Forest Mensuration:

Quantitative tools for Vegetation Ecology, such as

• “Vegetation composition”: quantitative analyses by (tree) species, i.e., our brand new approach to replace the old and obsolete “phytossociology” approach.
• “Forest structure”: (tree) size structure analyses based on DBH distribution.
• “Diversity indeces”:
• “Abundance models”: (we might not need it!!!)
• “Taxonomic Distinctness”:

Toos for data manipulation at level of: stem cross-section, individual stem, and individual tree

• stem2tree - this function already exists but need some “refinisshing”, it aggregates stem data to individual tree level.
• sec2stem - this one does not exists!!! The idea is to aggregate cross-section data to stem level, i.e., to produce volume/biomass for logs and stems using:
  • standard approaches: cubication formulas (Smalian, Huber and Newton)
  • splines
• tree2plot - new function: aggregates tree data to plot (sampling unit) level. To points to consider:
  • density expansion factors
  • hipsometric relationship: construction and application

Functions that operate on plot level data to produce forest level estimates and reports. The idea is to be able to process a Complete Forest Inventory in a very flexible way. This component should be left as the last one!!

What it should be able to do?

• Apply different sampling designs:
  • SRS - simple random sampling (the basics first)
  • Sist - sistematic sampling, possibly with computation of “intra-cluster correlation coefficiente” for variance correction when there are more than one sistematic sample in the area.
  • Strat - stratified sampling
  • DS - Double sampling
  • others . . .
• Apply geostatistics as a “model based sampling” in Forest Surveys!!!!!!!
• Fast report productions (let's make our lives easier!!!), with standard output tables for writing reports in LaTeX (let's make our lives A LOT easier!!!!)
• Fast standard plot presentation functions (let's make our lives EVEN easier!!!!)

Our old friend “Phyton” will have to be adapted