In the package randomForest of R, CARTs (based on gini) are used to create the forest. I need to use C4.5 (based on gain). Any recommendations for packages or commands?
Depends a little bit on what you understand by a random forest. But If we take it, that arandom forest is one where the trunks are distributed spatially according to a poisson distribution, the we get to a rather stric definition.
So distribute your trunk positions (in a coordinate system) according to a poisson distribution, and you have oyur radnom forest. You can the change LAD, or LAI, and study the effect of these changes, whithout having, positional effects scramble your (simulation) results.
It is as simple as that.
Frank
Data PROCEEDINGS CLIMACQS 2010 Atmospheric Aerosols and fAPAR