Quantifying tree height and canopy structure in a forest in Davao Oriental State College of Science and Technology, Mati City, Davao Oriental

Rancil  Quin  Salang,

Quantifying tree height and canopy structure in a forest in Davao Oriental State College of Science and Technology, Mati City, Davao Oriental

Abstract:

Forests are landscapes dominated by trees and cover approximately 30% of the earth’s land surface, housing most of its biodiversity. This study aimed to quantify the tree height and canopy structure of a man-made forest in the locality, particularly the density, relative density, frequency, relative frequency, coverage, relative coverage, diversity, and importance value of the trees in the study area. The establishment of the study area was conducted on 8, September 2017, and a transect-quadrat method was employed to assess the trees in the forest. Two (2) species of trees were found in the study area. These were paper tree (Gmelina arborea) and mahogany (Swietenia macrophylla). The densest tree species was mahogany with 0.53 followed by paper tree with 0.47. Mahogany was also observed to have a higher frequency than paper tree. Paper tree in the study area has larger canopy coverage and circumference at breast height than mahogany attributed to its fast-growing nature. The diversity of tree species in the study area was found to be low, attaining only 0.47 on the Shannon-Wiener Diversity Index and 0.69 on Simpson’s Diversity Index due to the small number of tree species present. The results of the importance value were low, with 1.32 for paper tree and 1.68 for mahogany since they are relatively young and have similar number of individuals.

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