Workshop Overview

The Canopy Database Project team is developing database tools to work with the complex, three-dimensional spatial data associated with tree crowns and forest canopies. With support from the Database Activities Program of the National Science Foundation, we have also been gathering individual canopy structure field data and metadata for a set of plots that encompass structurally simple and complex forests; we have dubbed this study the "Thousand Year Chronosequence". We are also collaborating with other researchers working on questions relating to canopy structure.

As part of this project, we are organizing a small, focused workshop April 25-26, 2002, at The Evergreen State College, to bring together our collaborators engaged in studies of forest structure. At this workshop 15-18 ecologists and database scientists will discuss, review, and work with canopy structural data and associated metadata collected from study sites in the Pacific Northwest and elsewhere. Each researcher will have previously sent one or several of his or her data sets that are likely candidates for comparative study with the "1kcs", or with other collaborator data sets.

The workshop will focus on the collaborators' specific data sets, generating comparative scientific questions that concern forest canopy structure. First, each individual researcher will be invited to describe the scientific questions for his or her study and the issues posed by the collection and analysis of field data. We will then view the data, ask questions, and generate questions about the individual datasets. The remaining workshop time will center on brainstorming questions that could be answered by considering comparative questions that emerge as we examine the datasets as a whole.

We anticipate creating a set of questions, some of which we could answer by composite analysis of the existing data sets, others for which we would need additional data, and still others that we could answer only with further development of this database project. Finally, we will generate a draft manuscript describing any scientific results and proposal for future work

We look forward to what is sure to be an exciting and meaningful meeting in April.

Many thanks.

Nalini & Judy



Nalini M. Nadkarni
Member of the Faculty

Judy Bayard Cushing
Member of the Faculty