Stem and crown relations in four species from an evermoist forest in Sri Lanka

Abstract

The volume of a tree's crown represents the accumulated historic crown surfaces integrated over time and environmental conditions. As such the crown volume of a tree should be correlated to the stem diameter, which represents accumulated historic wood increment. This study examines the relationship between crown and stem metrics of four tree species, Macaranga peltata, Schumacheria castaneifolia, Shorea megistophylla, and Shorea trapezifolia, from an evermoist forest in southwestern Sri Lanka. Shorea megistophyllahad the highest correlation between crown volume and stem diameter of the four species (r2 = 0.55). The addition of an inverted parabola, to represent historic crown surfaces not in..