The Biophysical Dataset

Extensive biophysical data have been assembled for the study region, including remotely sensed landcover, forest productivity indices, and climate measures. Three sources of the satellite landcover data (each at a different resolution) will be compared, to determine which scale is most appropriate to address our questions.

Digital forest resource inventories (FRI data) were obtained for nearly all of boreal Canada. We have combined the data from all provinces (each of which uses different formats) into one consistent format, in order to obtain a national FRI dataset. The Common Attribute Schema (CAS) procedure to address the variation between forest inventories was developed jointly for the Boreal Avian Modelling Project and the Canadian BEACONs project. A report summarizing the procedure is posted in the Library.

This exciting and challenging technical advance will enable more detailed habitat analyses that are comparable among jurisdictions, and are more relevant to avian ecology.