Visibility is a key factor influencing animal behavior in forest ecosystems. Fine-scale visibility in forested areas has been measured by ground-based approaches at the plot level, using site-specific methods that have limited spatial coverage. Here we examine airborne laser scanning (ALS) as a novel tool to quantify fine-scale visibility in the temperate forests of Germany at a landscape scale. We validate the (vertically-derived) ALS-derived visibility measures using proven (horizontally-derived) terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) estimates of true visibility. Our results indicate that there is a good agreement between the visibility resulting from ALS and TLS with an R² ranging from 0.53 to 0.84 and a normalized RMSE varying from 15.92% to 11.81% at various plot sizes, with the highest accuracy achieved using a plot size of 35 × 35 m. Our study demonstrates for the first time that ALS can be successfully applied to quantify fine-scale visibility in temperate forests at a landscape level. This approach holds potential for studying the spatial behavior of animals (e.g., habitat selection and predator–prey relationships) in forest ecosystems.

能见度是影响森林生态系统中动物行为的关键因素。森林地区的细尺度能见度是通过基于地块的方法在地块级别测量的，使用空间覆盖有限的特定地点的方法。在这里，我们将机载激光扫描 (ALS) 作为一种新工具，在景观尺度上量化德国温带森林中的精细能见度。我们使用经过验证的（水平衍生的）地面激光扫描（TLS）对真实能见度的估计来验证（垂直衍生的）ALS 衍生的能见度测量。我们的结果表明，由 ALS 和 TLS 产生的可见性与 R ²范围从 0.53 到 0.84，归一化的 RMSE 在不同的地块大小下从 15.92% 到 11.81% 不等，使用 35 × 35 m 的地块大小实现了最高精度。我们的研究首次表明，ALS 可以成功应用于在景观层面量化温带森林的精细能见度。这种方法具有研究森林生态系统中动物空间行为（例如栖息地选择和捕食者-猎物关系）的潜力。