What is Forest Stand Dynamics?

Forest ecosystems are fundamentally a network of interacting elements, which in turn, affect tree recruitment, growth, and mortality. The interactions among individual trees and their spatially heterogeneous environment are inherently local in nature acting at a neighbourhood scale over restricted distances.

Forests exhibit elements of quasi-chaotic and uncertain behaviours as a result of interactions among many non-linear relationships. Development of forests include many components of randomness (e.g., seed dispersal, neighbourhood composition, windstorms), but forests do not develop randomly. Complex behaviour is best represented using a "bottom-up" approach to modeling. Each hierarchical element is modeled as a discrete agent or object state, where each entity has functions that are characterized by relationships described by rules (or equations) and constant values or variables.