Forest structure as a determinant of grouse brood occurrence - An analysis linking LiDAR data with presence/absence field data

In countries like Finland, game management is almost always implemented in managed forests, which in the light of our results creates a need to integrate habitat management into forest management. Our results suggest that when managing grouse brood habitats, attention should be given to maintain both, protective canopy cover and a good understorey cover. It is fair to assume that the removal of these components will significantly decrease brood occurrence. Further, the study showed that a dataset (lidar) collected more for the purposes of forestry can also be used to study wildlife habitats occurring often in the same forests.