Modeling diameter distribution of black alder (Alnus glutinosa (L.) Gaertn.) stands in Poland

Abstract

We present diameter distribution models for black alder (Alnus glutinosa (L.) Gaertn.) derived from diameter measurements made at breast height in 844 circular sample plots set in 163 managed stands located in south-eastern Poland. A total of 22,530 trees were measured. Stand age ranged from six to 89 years. The model formulation was based on the two-parameterWeibull function and a non-parametric percentile-based method. Weibull function parameters were recovered from the first raw and second central moments estimated using the stand quadratic mean diameter. The same stand characteristic was used to predict values of 12 percentiles in the percentile-based method. The model performance was assessed using the k-fold cross-validation method. The goodness-of-fit statistics include the Kolmogorov-Smirnov statistic, mean error, root mean squared error, and two variants of the error index introduced by Reynolds. The percentile model developed, accurately predicted diameter distributions in 88.4% of black alder stands, as compared to 81.9% for the Weibull model (Kolmogorov-Smirnov test). Alternative statistical metrics assessing goodness-of-fit to empirical distributions suggested that the non-parametric percentile model was superior to the parametric Weibull model, especially in stands older than 20 years. In younger stands, the two models were accurate only in 57% of the cases, and did not differ significantly with respect to goodness-of-fit measures.