Monitoring capercaillie habitat using ALS

Two areas of which one was populated by capercaillie were compared with respect to canopy cover. The canopy cover was computed for hexagons with an area of 452 m as the proportion of canopy pixels in a digital surface model. The populated area reveals 3-8 times more open canopy structures. Since the capercaillie relies on the availability of open forest, this observation is accordant with the needs of the capercaillie. These first results indicate that ALS can be used to map potential and monitor existing habitat areas. It may support the planning and evaluation of measures implemented to stop the further degradation of the habitat quality, which is likely to be the cause for the decreasing population in the last decades