Rasmus Astrup
Adjunct Researcher
Rasmus Astrup was the Senior Scientist with the Bulkley Valley Research Centre. His main research area was stand dynamics and growth predictions for complex mixed-species stands. Rasmus was born in Denmark and he obtained his BSF at the Royal Agricultural and Veterinarian University in Copenhagen. He obtained his Ph.D. in quantitative silviculture and growth modeling at the University of British Columbia.
Rasmus is currently involved in several research projects that relate to topics such as quantifying individual tree competition across resource gradients, utilizing remote sensing techniques to parameterize process oriented growth models, quantifying and predicting regeneration and secondary structure after Mountain Pine Beetle attacks, developing and evaluating SORTIE-ND as a growth model for complex stands, and incorporating uncertainty into decision making for complex stands.
Over the past 5 years, Rasmus has worked with various aspects of stand dynamics in mixed-species boreal and sub-boreal ecosystems. He has mainly focused on topics related to understory tree growth, understory light availability, tree mortality, and growth modeling. The results of his work are published in several journals and have been presented at several conferences including the IUFRO 2005 World Forestry Congress. Rasmus is part of the development team behind the simulation model SORTIE-ND. As such, he has made several additions to SORTIE-ND that better allow the model to simulate boreal mixed wood stands. These additions include growth functions for juvenile understory trees, mortality functions, and volume prediction.
Rasmus worked for the Centre from October 2006 to March 2008.