Disentangling the causes of canopy height increase in managed and unmanaged temperate deciduous forests using multi-temporal airborne laser scanning

Between 10.6% and 13.7% of the canopy height model's pixels changed value due to lateral growth. There was no clear temporal trend for the frequencies of lateral growth in the managed forests chronosequence. Frequencies of lateral growth were also comparable between unmanaged and managed sites. Treetops of dominant trees grew slowly while crown edges of those trees grew both vertically and laterally. Our results show that canopy structure recovery in managed forests occurs through faster vertical crown growth of trees <10 m tall and lower tree mortality compared to unmanaged forests.