What is the difference between broadleaf and needleleaf trees

Common leaf identification shapes include ovate egg shaped , lanceolate long and narrow , deltoid triangular , obicular round and cordate heart shaped. Foresters call needleleaf trees softwoods because most of them have softer wood than broadleaf trees have. But the wood of Douglas-firs, yews, and some other needleleaf trees are hard. Needleleaf trees belong to a group of plants called gymnosperms.

Broad-Leaved Trees Energy moves into the roots, and the tree enters its winter dormancy. Needle-leaf trees, or conifers, have long, thin leaves that resemble needles. The western larch and alpine larch trees in the Bitterroot Mountains are examples of such deciduous conifers. That is, they are cone-bearing trees that shed all their leaves each fall and grow new ones the following spring — as do the bald cypress and tamarack trees back east. Unfortunately, the term deciduous is also often incorrectly used, because not all broadleaf trees are deciduous — for instance, holly, magnolia, many oaks, and various tropical species are broadleaf evergreen trees that do not shed their leaves in winter.

The logic used by landscape ecologists who deal with such descriptions is to make the distinction first on leaf type: that is, needleleaf versus broadleaf; and then on leaf persistence: evergreen versus deciduous; and to disregard the method of reproduction.

Sex — as in bearing cones and being coniferous — is irrelevant for tree identification, so that larch can be described simply as a needleleaf deciduous tree. Ponderosa pine is a needleleaf evergreen tree.

Impacts of including forest understory brightness and foliage clumping information from multiangular measurements on leaf area index mapping over North America.

A new leaf area index LAI data set in 10 day intervals with consideration of the understory reflectance and foliage clumping effects over North America for 1 year is developed.

First, the temporal consistency analysis indicated the new product is on par with other available LAI data sets currently used by the community.

Second, with the removal of the background understory in forests , moss, litter, and soil effect on the forest overstory LAI retrieval, slightly different LAI reductions were found between needleleaf and broadleaf forests. This is caused by the more clumped nature of needleleaf forests , especially at higher LAI values, which allows more light to penetrate through the overstory canopy, making the understory more visible for equal LAI as compared to broadleaf forests.

Third, the data set was directly validated and compared with Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer Collection 5 LAI product using results from the BigFoot project for available forest test sites. This study demonstrates that the fusion of data inputs between multiple sensors can indeed lead to improved products and that multiangle remote sensing can help us to address effectively the issues separating the signal from the understory and overstory, foliage clumping that could not be solved via the means of the conventional mono-angle remote sensing.

Seasonal and spatial variation in broadleaf forest model parameters. Process based, coupled ecosystem carbon, energy and water cycle models are used with the ultimate goal to project the effect of future climate change on the terrestrial carbon cycle.

A typical dilemma in such exercises is how much detail the model must be given to describe the observations reasonably realistic while also be general. We use a simple vegetation model 5PM with five model parameters to study the variability of the parameters. For 15 broadleaf forests the model parameters were derived for different time resolutions.

It appears that in general for all forests , the correlation coefficient between observed and simulated carbon and water fluxes improves with a higher parameter time resolution.

The quality of the simulations is thus always better when a higher time resolution is used. These results show that annual parameters are not capable of properly describing weather effects on ecosystem fluxes, and that two day time resolution yields the best results.

A first indication of the climate constraints can be found by the seasonal variation of the covariance between Jm, which describes the maximum electron transport for photosynthesis, and climate variables. A general seasonality we found is that during winter the covariance with all climate variables is zero. Jm increases rapidly after initial spring warming, resulting in a large covariance with air temperature and global radiation. During summer Jm is less variable, but co-varies negatively with air temperature and vapour pressure deficit and positively with soil water content.

A temperature response appears during spring and autumn for broadleaf forests. This shows that an annual model parameter cannot be representative for the entire year. And relations with mean annual temperature are not possible. During summer the photosynthesis parameters are constrained by water availability, soil water content and. Leaf-on canopy closure in broadleaf deciduous forests predicted during winter.

Forest canopy influences light transmittance, which in turn affects tree regeneration and survival, thereby having an impact on forest composition and habitat conditions for wildlife. Because leaf area is the primary impediment to light penetration, quantitative estimates of canopy closure are normally made during summer.

Studies of forest structure and wildlife habitat that occur during winter, when deciduous trees have shed their leaves, may inaccurately estimate canopy closure. We estimated percent canopy closure during both summer leaf-on and winter leaf-off in broadleaf deciduous forests in Mississippi and Louisiana using gap light analysis of hemispherical photographs that were obtained during repeat visits to the same locations within bottomland and mesic upland hardwood forests and hardwood plantation forests.

We used mixed-model linear regression to predict leaf-on canopy closure from measurements of leaf-off canopy closure, basal area, stem density, and tree height. Differential responses of carbon and water vapor fluxes to climate among evergreen needleleaf forests in the USA. Here, understanding the differences in carbon and water vapor fluxes of spatially distributed evergreen needleleaf forests ENFs is crucial for accurately estimating regional or global carbon and water budgets and when predicting the responses of ENFs to current and future climate.

Relationships between net primary productivity and stand age for several forest types and their influence on China's carbon balance. Affected by natural and anthropogenic disturbances such as forest fires, insect-induced mortality and harvesting, forest stand age plays an important role in determining the distribution of carbon pools and fluxes in a variety of forest ecosystems.

An improved understanding of the relationship between net primary productivity NPP and stand age i. In this paper, we developed functions describing the relationship between national mean NPP and stand age using stand age information derived from forest inventory data and NPP simulated by the BEPS Boreal Ecosystem Productivity Simulator model in Due to differences in ecobiophysical characteristics of different forest types, NPP-age equations were developed for five typical forest ecosystems in China deciduous needleleaf forest DNF , evergreen needleleaf forest in tropic and subtropical zones ENF-S , deciduous broadleaf forest DBF , evergreen broadleaf forest EBF , and mixed broadleaf forest MBF.

The timing and magnitude of the maximum NPP varied with forest types. NPP was generally lower in older stands with the exception of DBF, and this particular finding runs counter to the paradigm of age-related decline in forest growth. Evaluation based on measurements of NPP and stand age at the plot-level demonstrates the reliability. Satellite-based phenology detection in broadleaf forests in South-Western Germany. Many techniques exist for extracting phenological information from time series of satellite data.

However, there have been only a few successful attempts to temporarily match satellite-derived observations with ground based phenological observations Fisher et al. Such studies are primarily plagued with problems relating to shorter time series of satellite data including spatial and temporal resolution issues.

A great challenge is to correlate spatially continuous and pixel-based satellite information with spatially discontinuous and point-based, mostly species-specific, ground observations of phenology. Moreover, the minute differences in phenology observed by ground volunteers might not be sufficient to produce changes in satellite-measured reflectance of vegetation, which also exposes the difference in the definitions of phenology Badeck et al.

The NDVI time series raster data was masked for broadleaf forests using Corine Land Cover dataset, filtered and corrected for snow and cloud contaminations, smoothed with a Gaussian filter and interpolated to daily values.

The different satellite SOS were then compared with a species-rich ground based phenology information e. Working with all the pixels at a finer resolution, it is seen that the temporal trends in understory and broad leaf species are well captured. Initial analyses show promising. The refuge lies within the middle boreal subzone of north central Alaska. Seven major vegetation classes and sixteen subclasses were recognized: forest closed needleleaf , open needleleaf , needleleaf woodland, mixed, and broadleaf ; broadleaf scrub lowland, alluvial, subalpine ; dwarf scrub prostrate dwarf shrub tundra, dwarf shrub-graminoid tussock peatland ; herbaceous graminoid bog, marsh and meadow ; scarcely vegetated areas scarcely vegetated scree and floodplain ; water clear, turbid ; and other areas mountain shadow.

The methodology employed a cluster-block technique. Sample areas were described based on a combination of helicopter-ground survey, aerial photointerpretation, and digital Landsat data.

Major steps in the Landsat analysis involved preprocessing geometric correction , derivation of statistical parameters for spectral classes, spectral class labeling of sample areas, preliminary classification of the entire study area using a maximum-likelihood algorithm, and final classification utilizing ancillary information such as digital elevation data.

The final product is a ,scale vegetation map representative of distinctive regional patterns and suitable for use in comprehensive conservation planning. How multiple factors control evapotranspiration in North America evergreen needleleaf forests. Identifying the factors dominating ecosystem water flux is a critical step for predicting evapotranspiration ET.

Here, the fuzzy rough set with binary shuffled frog leaping BSFL-FRSA was used to identify both individual factors and multi-factor combinations that dominate the half-hourly ET variation at evergreen needleleaf forests ENFs sites across three different climatic zones in the North America.

While the importance order would vary with climatic zones, and TA was assessed as the most influential factor at a single climatic zone level, counting a contribution rate of Our results suggest that temperature was most critical for ET variation at the warm summer continental ENF.

A Landsat-derived vegetation map was prepared for lnnoko National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge lies within the northern boreal subzone of northwestern central Alaska. Six major vegetation classes and 21 subclasses were recognized: forest closed needleleaf , open needleleaf , needleleaf woodland, mixed, and broadleaf ; broadleaf scrub lowland, upland burn regeneration, subalpine ; dwarf scrub prostrate dwarf shrub tundra, erect dwarf shrub heath, dwarf shrub-graminoid peatland, dwarf shrub-graminoid tussock peatland, dwarf shrub raised bog with scattered trees, dwarf shrub-graminoid marsh ; herbaceous graminoid bog, graminoid marsh, graminoid tussock-dwarf shrub peatland ; scarcely vegetated areas scarcely vegetated scree and floodplain ; and water clear, sedimented.

Sample areas were described based on a combination of helicopter-ground survey, aerial photo-interpretation, and digital Landsat data. The final product is ,scale vegetation map representative of distinctive regional patterns and suitable for use in comprehensive conservation planning.

On vegetation mapping in Alaska using LANDSAT imagery with primary concerns for method and purpose in satellite image-based vegetation and land-use mapping and the visual interpretation of imagery in photographic format.

The author has identified the following significant results. The ,, scale print used was prepared by a color additive process using positive transparencies from MSS bands 4, 5, and 7. Seven color classes were recognized. A vegetation map of sq km area just west of Fairbanks, Alaska was made.

Five colors were recognized on the image and identified to vegetation types roughly equivalent to formations in the UNESCO classification: orange - broadleaf deciduous forest ; gray - needleleaf evergreen forest ; light violet - subarctic alpine tundra vegetation; violet - broadleaf deciduous shrub thicket; and dull violet - bog vegetation.

Charcoal morphotypes and the pollen record show the predominance of frequent surface fires, occasionally transitioning to the crown during Pinus sylvestris-Betula boreal forests and less frequent surface fires during the dominance of temperate deciduous forests.

In contrast to the prevailing opinion that fires in boreal forests are mostly low to moderate severity surface fires, we found evidence for common occurrence of stand-replacing crown fires in Picea abies canopy. Our results highlight that charcoal morphotypes analysis allows for distinguishing the fuel types and surface from crown fires, therefore significantly advancing our interpretation of fire regime.

Future warmer temperatures and increase in the frequency of dry spells and abundant biomass accumulation can enhance the fire risk on the one hand, but will probably promote the expansion of broadleaf deciduous forests to higher latitudes, on the other hand.

By highlighting the capability of broadleaf deciduous forests to act as fire-suppressing landscape elements, our results suggest that fire activity may not increase in the Baltic area under future climate change. Here, soil respiration R s , an important component of the global carbon cycle, can be estimated using remotely sensed data, but the accuracy of this technique has not been thoroughly investigated.

In this study, we proposed a methodology for the remote estimation of annual R s at two contrasting FLUXNET forest sites a deciduous broadleaf forest and an evergreen needleleaf forest. A version of the Akaike's information criterion was used to select the best model from a range of models for annual R s estimation based on the remotely sensed data products from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer and root-zonemore » soil moisture product derived from assimilation of the NASA Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer soil moisture products and a two-layer Palmer water balance model.

We found that the Arrhenius-type function based on nighttime land surface temperature LST-night was the best model by comprehensively considering the model explanatory power and model complexity at the Missouri Ozark and BC-Campbell River Douglas-fir sites.

The affection of boreal forest changes on imbalance of Nature Invited. Abstract: The balance of nature does not exist, and, perhaps, never has existed [1]. In other words, the Mother Nature is imbalanced at all. The Mother Nature is changing every moment and never returns to previous condition. Because of the imbalance of nature, global climate has been changing gradually.

To reveal the imbalance of nature, there is a need to monitor the dynamic changes of the Earth surface. Forest cover and forest cover change have been grown in importance as basic variables for modelling of global biogeochemical cycles as well as climate [2]. These trees play a large part in limiting harmful greenhouse gases by aborbing much of the earth's carbon dioxide CO2 [3]. The boreal area mainly consists of needleleaf evergreen forest and needleleaf deciduous forest. Both of the needleleaf evergreen forest and needleleaf deciduous forest play the important roles on the uptake of CO2.

However, because of the dormant period of needleleaf evergreen forest are shorter than that of needleleaf deciduous forest , needleleaf evergreen forest makes a greater contribution to the absorbtion of CO2.

Satellite sensor because of its ability to observe the Earth continuously, can provide the opportunity to monitor the dynamic changes of the Earth. In this study, we used the MODerate resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer MODIS satellite data to monitor the dynamic change of boreal forest area which are mainly consist from needleleaf evergreen forest and needleleaf deciduous forest during Three years MODIS data from the year , and were used to detect the forest changed area.

A hybrid change detection method which combines the threshold method and unsupervised classification method was used to detect the changes of forest area. In the first step, the difference of Normalized Difference Vegetation Index NDVI of the three years were calculated and were used to extract the changed areas by the. Accurate estimation of forest biomass C stock is essential to understand carbon cycles. However, current estimates of Chinese forest biomass are mostly based on inventory-based timber volumes and empirical conversion factors at the provincial scale, which could introduce large uncertainties in forest biomass estimation.

Here we provide a data-driven estimate of Chinese forest aboveground biomass from to at a spatial resolution of 1 km by integrating a recently reviewed plot-level ground-measured forest aboveground biomass database with geospatial information from 1-km Moderate-Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer MODIS dataset in a machine learning algorithm the model tree ensemble, MTE.

We show that Chinese forest aboveground biomass is 8. The mean forest aboveground biomass density is The responses of forest aboveground biomass density to mean annual temperature are closely tied to water conditions; that is, negative responses dominate regions with mean annual precipitation less than mm y-1 and positive responses prevail in regions with mean annual precipitation higher than mm y During the s, the forests in China sequestered C by Increasing atmospheric humidity and CO 2 concentration alleviate forest mortality risk.

Climate-induced forest mortality is being increasingly observed throughout the globe. Alarmingly, it is expected to exacerbate under climate change due to shifting precipitation patterns and rising air temperature. However, the impact of concomitant changes in atmospheric humidity and CO 2 concentration through their influence on stomatal kinetics remains a subject of debate and inquiry.

By using a dynamic soil—plant—atmosphere model, mortality risks associated with hydraulic failure and stomatal closure for 13 temperate and tropical forest biomes across the globe are analyzed. The mortality risk is evaluated in response to both individual and combined changes in precipitation amounts and their seasonalmore » distribution, mean air temperature, specific humidity, and atmospheric CO 2 concentration.

Model results show that the risk is predicted to significantly increase due to changes in precipitation and air temperature regime for the period — However, this increase may largely get alleviated by concurrent increases in atmospheric specific humidity and CO 2 concentration.

The increase in mortality risk is expected to be higher for needleleaf forests than for broadleaf forests , as a result of disparity in hydraulic traits. These findings will further facilitate decisions about intervention and management of different forest types under changing climate.

CMIP5 models have been shown to underestimate both trend and variability in northern hemisphere spring snow cover extent. A substantial fraction of this area is covered by boreal forests , in which the snow energy balance is dominated by radiation.

Forest coverage impacts the surface radiation budget by shading the ground and enhancing longwave radiation. Longwave enhancement in boreal forests is a potential mechanism that contributes to uncertainty in snowmelt modelling, however, its impact on snowmelt in global land models has not been analysed yet.

This study assesses the simulation of sub-canopy longwave radiation and longwave enhancement by CLM4. Simulation of sub-canopy longwave enhancement is evaluated at boreal forest sites covering the three boreal PFT in CLM4. ENT are evaluated over a total of six snowmelt seasons in Swiss alpine and subalpine forests , as well as a single season at a Finnish arctic site with varying vegetation density.

A Swedish artic site features varying vegetation density for DBT for a single winter, and two sites in Eastern Siberia are included covering a total of four snowmelt seasons in DNT forests. Simulation errors result mainly from clear sky conditions, due to high absorption of shortwave radiation during daytime and radiative cooling during nighttime.

Factors affecting broadleaf woody vegetation in upland pine forests managed for longleaf pine restoration. Robert N. Addington; Benjamin O.

Knapp; Geoffrey G. Sorrell; Michele L. Elmore; G. Geoff Wang; Joan L. Controlling broadleaf woody plant abundance is one of the greatest challenges in longleaf pine Pinus palustris Mill.

Numerous factors have been associated with broadleaf woody plant abundance in longleaf pine ecosystems, including site quality, stand structure, and fire frequency and intensity, yet the way in which these Global climate and the distribution of plant biomes.

Biomes are areas of vegetation that are characterized by the same life-form. Traditional definitions of biomes have also included either geographical or climatic descriptors.

This approach describes a wide range of biomes that can be correlated with characteristic climatic conditions, or climatic envelopes.

The application of remote sensing technology to the frequent observation of biomes has led to a move away from the often subjective definition of biomes to one that is objective. Carefully characterized observations of life-form, by satellite, have been used to reconsider biome classification and their climatic envelopes. Five major tree biomes can be recognized by satellites based on leaf longevity and morphology: needleleaf evergreen, broadleaf evergreen, needleleaf deciduous, broadleaf cold deciduous and broadleaf drought deciduous.

Observations indicate that broadleaf drought deciduous vegetation grades substantially into broadleaf evergreen vegetation. The needleleaf deciduous biome occurs in the world's coldest climates, where summer drought and therefore a drought deciduous biome are absent.

Traditional biome definitions are quite static, implying no change in their life-form composition with time, within their particular climatic envelopes. However, this is not the case where there has been global ingress of grasslands and croplands into forested vegetation. The global spread of grasses, a new super-biome, was probably initiated Myr ago by an increase in global aridity, and was driven by the natural spread of the disturbances of fire and animal grazing.

These disturbances have been further extended over the Holocene era by human activities that have increased the land areas available for domestic animal grazing and for growing crops. The current situation is that grasses now occur in most, if not all biomes, and in many areas they dominate and define the biome. Croplands are also increasing, defining a new and relatively recent component to the.

Impacts of precipitation seasonality and ecosystem types on evapotranspiration in the Yukon River Basin, Alaska. Evapotranspiration ET is the largest component of water loss from terrestrial ecosystems; however, large uncertainties exist when estimating the temporal and spatial variations of ET because of concurrent shifts in the magnitude and seasonal distribution of precipitation as well as differences in the response of ecosystem ET to environmental variabilities.

In this study, we examined the impacts of precipitation seasonality and ecosystem types on ET quantified by eddy covariance towers from to in three ecosystems grassland, deciduous broadleaf forest , and evergreen needleleaf forest in the Yukon River Basin, Alaska.

The annual precipitation changed greatly in both magnitude and seasonal distribution through the three investigated years. Observations and model results showed that ET was more sensitive to precipitation scarcity in the early growing season than in the late growing season, which was the direct result of different responses of ET components to precipitation in different seasons. The results demonstrated the importance of seasonal variations of precipitation in regulating annual ET and overshadowing the function of annual precipitation.

Comparison of ET among ecosystems over the growing season indicated that ET was largest in deciduous broadleaf , intermediate in evergreen needleleaf , and lowest in the grassland ecosystem. These ecosystem differences in ET were related to differences in successional stages and physiological responses. New flux based dose-response relationships for ozone for European forest tree species. To derive O3 dose-response relationships DRR for five European forest trees species and broadleaf deciduous and needleleaf tree plant functional types PFTs , phytotoxic O3 doses PODy were related to biomass reductions.

PODy was calculated using a stomatal flux model with a range of cut-off thresholds y indicative of varying detoxification capacities. A simplified parameterisation of the flux model was tested and showed that for most non-Mediterranean tree species, this simplified model led to similarly robust DRR as compared to a species- and climate region-specific parameterisation.

Experimentally induced soil water stress was not found to substantially reduce PODy, mainly due to the short duration of soil water stress periods.

This study validates the stomatal O3 flux concept and represents a step forward in predicting O3 damage to forests in a spatially and temporally varying climate. Published by Elsevier Ltd. Toward extending terrestrial laser scanning applications in forestry: a case study of broad- and needle-leaf tree classification. Tree species information is essential for forest research and management purposes, which in turn require approaches for accurate and precise classification of tree species.

One such remote sensing technology, terrestrial laser scanning TLS , has proved to be capable of characterizing detailed tree structures, such as tree stem geometry.

Can TLS further differentiate between broad- and needle-leaves? If the answer is positive, TLS data can be used for classification of taxonomic tree groups by directly examining their differences in leaf morphology. Instead, a broadleaf tree has broad or wide leaves. Broadleaf trees can be further divided into simple leaves and compound leaves. Simple leaves are those that have one leaf on one stem. The shape and size of the leaf do not matter; if the leaf has only one part it is a simple leaf.

That leaf can have smooth edges, serrated toothed edges, or edges that are divided into lobes think of the way your ear lobe sticks off your ear. In contrast, compound leaves are not simple.