Data for: Characterizing individual tree-level snags using airborne lidar-derived forest canopy gaps within closed-canopy conifer forests

1. Airborne lidar is often used to calculate forest metrics about trees but it may also provide a wealth of information about the space between trees. Forest canopy gaps are defined by the absence of vegetative structure and serve important roles for wildlife, such as facilitating animal movement. Forest canopy gaps also occur around snags, keystone structures that provide important substrates to wildlife species for breeding, roosting, and foraging.

2. We wanted to test a method for quantifying canopy gaps around individual snags and live trees, with the working hypothesis that snags would have more gaps surrounding them overall than live trees. We evaluated canopy gaps around individual snags (n=270) and live trees (n=2186) and evaluated correlations between canopy structure and snag occurrence in dense conifer stands of the Idaho Panhandle National Forest, USA. We paired airborne lidar with ground reference data collected at fixed-radius plots (n=53) to evaluate local gap structur...