big peak sports spectacular ridges red US science put to techniques to monitor the peaks space.A team from the University of Idaho uses a laser satellite to try to predict how much of a State forest birds may be living.
The instrument may not see the individual peaks or trees, but it can determine the key characteristics of a wooded area, as is how dense.
Initial work has shown maps constructed from these data can locate areas favored by the North American Pileated Woodpecker.
Scientists who seek to know where these birds are because they are considered as good indicators of the global diversity of birds in a forest.
"They create homes for many other species in the context of the forest", explained Dr. Kerri Vierling fish at and Wildlife Department.
They are cavities and these holes are then used by other species for nesting and resting.
"Peaks are very sensitive to the characteristics of the forest, and they are therefore very selective about where they decide to live".
Search Idaho presented here in San Francisco at the fall meeting American Geophysical Union (AGU), most large annual gathering the planet of Earth and planetary scientists.
The team evaluated approximately 20,000 hectares of forest in the Northern State of Moscow mountain. They used data acquired by laser altimeters embedded aircraft and spacecraft of the Nasa Icesat prior to his recent retirement (it was de-orbited in August).
Icesat will be replaced later this decadeOriginally conceived as a means of measuring the height of the surface of the ice in the polar regions, the instrument of the Icesat has also proved extremely effective in gathering information on plant cover in other parts of the globe.
Because of the way the light beam sent by laser rebounds disables leaf canopy trees and the ground, it is possible to make general statements on the important characteristics of the forest.
Team member Patrick Adam told BBC News: "we are trying to measure the diameter of the trees and their density." We do not do so directly from these instruments, but to get to the diameter, we can measure the height of the trees because large trees are larger than the short trees; and we arrive at the density of the forest by examining the relative quantity of light returned by foliage in which is returned to the soil.
"Therefore, looking at areas with the highest trees, we know that they are also the largest trees in diameter and has a better chance that there are peaks it." We will which emit only get out us and we are actually land peak in these areas and to verify that it.
Dr. Lee Vierling, University Department of forest ecology and biogeosciences added: "it is a species which has need for high-density forests." This is the Pileated Woodpecker.
Pileated Woodpecker prefer a dense stand they eat ants"It's a beautiful bird with a red crest on its head height." It is a species foraging food Carpenter Ant so dense forest, best for this particular bird. »
Since the survey of forest structure tend to be fairly intensive efforts involving workers send many people in an area on foot to make the assessment. And although these evaluations produce very detailed results, they are necessarily limited in their spatial information.
Combining remotely sensed data in the effort of soil should be more relevant over large areas of forest habitat surveys.
"If we are able to predict where peaks are just based on satellite data, and then we can also assume, based on some other characteristics of vegetation, we could also have a greater diversity of forest songbirds or even mammals and reptiles. "This is useful in planning of land use and planning, biodiversity," said Mr. Adam.
"It's much easier to use satellite data." It is important to always do some checks on the ground at some points simply select to ensure that we will not completely off the coast of the tangent of reality. But generally, Yes, we can cover large areas with airborne lidar, and we really hope that we can use the space lidar for car which has global coverage so that we could use a much larger scale.
The Icesat instrument is no longer in the space, but it will be replaced later this decade. In addition, the American space agency thinks flying another instrument of laser on his travels, ecosystem structure and Dynamics of Ice (DESDynI) mission.
Jonathan.Amos-INTERNET@BBC.co.UK
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