| Wow
Index |
Roman
Dial |
| Sep
28, 2005 18:55 PDT |
Bruce,
That is a good sized data set, for sure! And it is certainly
true that
some tall trees have relatively smaller buttresses in the
tropics, too.
Here's a paper I just looked at that gets about the same sort of
r-square between buttress diameter and height for 300
individuals in the
Amazon (Asner et al. Biotropica 34: 482-492) that I got for my
one-tenth
the sample size in Borneo.
The bigger issue really (for me) is coming up with indices that
capture
the "coolness factor." I really like the Rucker index
because it's
simple and it captures some of how neat a forest might be. A
neat forest
(for me) is a place where I wander around and see a variety of
amazing
trees.
Two ways stand out of getting amazing trees. One is visiting
timberline
where often the diversity in species is very low but the
diversity in
forms and their "presentation" (against rocks, in
meadows, creeping,
wind blasted -- the huge variety of krumholtz) is spectacular --
each
tree is so individualistis in morphology. The other way is a
forest of
just big trees of a variety of different types.
I have neck problems -- too many years of looking up (first
rocks, then
mountains, now trees) -- so I do like big girth and especially
wild
buttreses. Buttressing in the primary lowland tropics of Borneo
is a
delight to experience (I am also partial to high volume and
twisted
lianas, but that's a differnt story).
What I am trying to get to in a long winded way is this: I want
to
combine height with buttressing in tropical trees to come up
with a
"wow" index (and the words "wow",
"beast", "wall of wood", "giant",
"holy cow", "oh my god" dn't satisfy my
quantitative/analytic side
sufficiently). My hunch is that the AF Point system for
identifying
Champions is a temperate version of this same desire. A
numerical means
of capturing the "wow" factor of big trees using CBH,
height, and crown
spread. I want to use buttresses together with height to
calculate a
"wow" factor for tropical trees.
Indeed I sense many ENTS out there, especially those playing
with their
RD 1000's are doing this with wood volume. I know BVP has
infected Brett
Mifsud with volume as the rawest of the raw "wow"
factor calculations,
but as yet most of us don't have the experience measuring volume
for the
numbers to have the same meaning as girth, height and spread,
the
classic combination.
Roman
|
| Re:
Wow index |
Edward
Frank |
| Sep
28, 2005 19:07 PDT |
Roman,
I have thought about a "Wow Index" for some time, but
haven't figured out
how to make it work. I don't think the AF process is the way to
go. I sent
this comment to Carl Harting the other day: "The Nature
Conservancy (I will
need to check, but I think they are the ones) has a series of
questions
where certain characterisitics are rated on a scale from 1 to 10
to
characterize the aesthetic values of sites under consideration
for purchase.
The big oak would rate well on a "Character Scale"
several similar concepts
have been floated in the discussion list. A "degree of
naturalness" this
might be something that could be calculated using hard figures.
Will Blozan
suggested a "degree of gnarliness." As a group we
should play with the
ideas of "Character" and "Gnarliness"
indexes and see what we can figure
out." I think it should be derived from a quantitative
assessment of
subjective rankings of various aesthetic factors, which could
very well
include height, butress, girth, crown spread, as well as form,
signs of age,
gnarlyness... Definitly something to think about.
Ed
|
| RE:
Wow index |
Will
Blozan |
| Sep
29, 2005 18:01 PDT |
I like BVP's "Gnarlage Factor"... I have come to call
some trees "Big G",
for a big and gnarly beast.
Will B
|
|