Both within and between species, leaf physiological parameters are strongly related to leaf dry mass per area (LMA, g/m2), which has been found to increase from forest floor to canopy top in every forest where it has been measured. Although vertical LMA gradients in forests have historically been attributed to a direct phenotypic response to light, an increasing number of recent studies have pr...

Leaf area is an important plant canopy structure parameter with important ecological significance. Light detection and ranging technology (LiDAR) with the application of a terrestrial laser scanner (TLS) is an appealing method for accurately estimating leaf area; however, the actual utility of this scanner depends largely on the efficacy of point cloud data (PCD) analysis. In this paper, we pre...

The concept of canopy spectral invariants states that simple algebraic combinations of leaf and canopy spectral transmittance and reflectance become wavelength independent and determine a small set of canopy structure specific variables. This set of structural variables specify the spectral response of a vegetation canopy to the incident solar radiation and allow for a simple and accurate param...

On 11 September 1992, Hurricane Iniki struck koa forests we had studied along an elevation gradient (500 to 1300 m) on western Kaua'i. The hurricane decreased canopy leaf area by 29 to 80 percent, and damage was proportional to pre-hurricane leaf area and canopy height. At some sites, phyllodes were stripped from intact branches, leaving the canopy otherwise intact. At other sites, many large b...

BACKGROUND AND AIMS Growth in trunk height in canopy openings is important for saplings. How saplings increase height growth in canopy openings may relate to crown architectural constraints. Responses of crown development to canopy openings in relation to trunk height growth were studied for saplings (0.2-2.5 m tall) of eight tropical submontane forest tree species in Indonesia. The results of ...

We are using Flourensia cernua as a shrub model to study how terpenes affect livestock herbivory. Two experiments were conducted to examine distribution of volatile chemicals within a plant in an effort to minimize sample variability. In Experiment 1, leaves (current year’s growth) were collected from 20 tarbush plants. Two leaders were sampled from each of three positions (outer canopy, subcan...

Terrestrial ecosystems are dominated by vascular plants that form a mosaic of hydraulic conduits to water movement from the soil to the atmosphere. Together with canopy leaf area, canopy stomatal conductance regulates plant water use and thereby photosynthesis and growth. Although stomatal conductance is coordinated with plant hydraulic conductance, governing relationships across species has no...

We investigated leaf physiological traits of dominant canopy trees in four lowland Panamanian forests with contrasting mean annual precipitation (1,800, 2,300, 3,100 and 3,500 mm). There was near complete turn-over of dominant canopy tree species among sites, resulting in greater dominance of evergreen species with long-lived leaves as precipitation increased. Mean structural and physiological ...

The present work has explored for the first time acclimation of upper versus lower canopy leaves along an altitudinal gradient. We tested the hypothesis that restrictive climatic conditions associated with high altitudes reduce within-canopy variations of leaf traits. The investigated beech (Fagus sylvatica L.) forest is located on the southern slope of the Hrubý Jeseník Mountains (Czech Republ...

Townsend et al. (1) agree that we explained that the apparent relationship (2) between foliar nitrogen (%N) and near-infrared (NIR) canopy reflectance was largely attributable to structure (which is in turn caused by variation in fraction of broadleaf canopy). Our conclusion that the observed correlation with %N was spurious (i.e., lacking a causal basis) is, thus, clearly justified: we demonst...