Clawges, R., Vierling, K., Vierling L., and Rowell E. 2008. The use of airborn lidar to assess avian species diversity, density, and occurrence in a pine/aspen forest. Remote Sensing of Environment. 112:2064-2073

                   In this article, the authors investigated the utility of LiDAR data to represent the vegetation structure in a pine/aspen forest of South Dakota, by correlating LiDAR derived data and field-based data; they also studied the relationship of vegetation structure indices, obtained from LiDAR, with bird density and diversity; and third, the authors combined IKONOS and LiDAR data to select areas containing specific composition and structural vegetation, to compare bird density of two species of birds. Their results show that the vegetation indices obtained from LiDAR and the field-based data were significantly correlated. Also, LiDAR derived vegetation structure indices were positively correlated to bird species diversity. However, not all category correlations were statically significant. Finally, their results showed that, while Dark-eye juncos were associated to stands dominated by pines, Warbling vireos to aspen-dominated stands. Thus, based on their results, Clawges et al., conclude that LiDAR is an effective alternative to quantify structural forest characteristics, and probably even more effective if combined with spectral data.