作者：Zhonghua Zhao, Gangying Hui*, Yanbo Hu, Hongxiang Wang, Gongqiao Zhang, and Klaus von
Gadow
期刊：Canadian Journal of Forest
Research
时间：2014年7月10日
卷.期.页码：44: 1419–1425
(2014) dx.doi.org/10.1139/cjfr-2014-0192
摘要：The uniform
angle index (UAI) is used to characterize the spatial distribution of a forest
community or of individual tree species
within that community. This study presents an empirical assessment of the
performance of a new statistical test used in
conjunction with the UAI. In this study, the UAI is applied to observed and
simulated communities. The effect of plot size and density are
examined and the results are compared with the criteria of the aggregation
index R of Clark and
Evan (CE-R) and Ripley's L function (RL). The results suggest
that the UAI performs well in determining a particular class of spatial pattern and that, in contrast to the CE-R index, it is unaffected
by population density because the standard deviation can be estimated when the density is known using a new empirical
relationship presented in this paper. The results of this study represent an improvement in the development of the UAI, verifying its
performance and confirming its overall utility. Our comparative analysis positions the UAI among its historical
competitors, the CE-R and RL criteria. The UAI index, which does not require expensive mapping of tree positions, can produce results
that are equivalent to those obtained by RL and more robust and reliable than those obtained by CE-R.