The effects of forest fragmentation on forest stand attributes

For two study areas in Minnesota, USA, one heavily forested and one sparsely forested, maps of predicted proportion forest area were created using Landsat Thematic Mapper imagery, forest inventory plot data, and a logistic regression model. The maps were used to estimate quantitative indices of forest fragmentation. Correlations between the values of the indices and forest attributes observed on forest inventory plots were estimated. One interesting result was a statistically significant negative correlation between total forest area and number of tree species per unit forest area.