Nico Diaz-KlochMy PhD research will be focused on understanding how global change drivers impact the boreal forest across different scales. The ecological function and health of this biome is intimately linked with climate, disturbance – recovery dynamics, composition, and structural characteristics. These features vary widely throughout the boreal forest, suggesting that the strongest limiting factors differ across ecological gradients. It is therefore vital to explore which change drivers best explain the highly variable and non-uniform response that we observe in the biome. Currently, there is a strong discrepancy regarding the magnitude and direction of ecosystem change, particularly when different spatial scales are accounted for. My goal is to understand how the boreal forest has changed in the past three decades, and how these changes correlate with forest structure, composition, and seasonal climate conditions at different spatio-temporal scales.
Selected Publications: Diaz-Kloch, N., & Murray, D.L. (2024). Harmonizing GEDI and LVIS Data for Accurate and Large-Scale Mapping of Foliage Height Diversity. Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing 50(1):2341762. Diaz-Kloch, N., & Murray, D. L. (2023). Bridging the Gap: Comprehensive Boreal Forest Complexity Mapping through LVIS Full-Waveform LiDAR, Single-Year and Time Series Landsat Imagery. Remote Sensing, 15(22):5274. |
Education
2018 Professional Masters in Bioenvironmental Monitoring and Assessment (Trent University) Contact: [email protected] |