Canopy characterization is a key factor to improve pesticide application methods in tree crops and vineyards. Development of quick, easy and efficient methods to determine the fundamental parameters used to characterize canopy structure is thus an important need. In this research the use of ultrasonic and LIDAR sensors have been compared with the traditional manual and destructive canopy measur...

Regional analyses of biogeochemical processes can benefit significantly from observational information on land cover, vegetation structure (e.g., leaf area index), and biophysical properties such as fractional PAR absorption. Few remote sensing efforts have provided a suite of plant attributes needed to link vegetation structure to ecosystem function at high spatial resolution. In arid and semi...

Question: What are the shape, abundance, size, and structural characteristics of sapling patches in an old-growth Pinus jeffreyi-mixed conifer forest with a relatively intact disturbance regime? Location: Sierra San Pedro Martir, Baja California, Mexico. Methods: Regeneration was quantified by sampling sapling patches on seven 1200 m permanently marked line transects. For all patches intersecte...

In Ollinger et al. (1), we reported that mass-based concentrations of nitrogen in forest canopies (%N) are positively associated with whole-canopy photosynthetic capacity and canopy shortwave albedo in temperate and boreal forests, the latter result stemming from a positive correlation between %N and canopy near infrared (NIR) reflectance. This finding is intriguing because a functional link be...

The conservation of charismatic and functionally important large species is becoming increasingly difficult. Anthropogenic pressures continue to squeeze available habitat and force animals into degraded and disturbed areas. Ensuring the long-term survival of these species requires a well-developed understanding of how animals use these new landscapes to inform conservation and habitat restorati...

Forest cover is of great interest to a variety of scientific and land management applications, many of which require not only information on forest categories, but also tree canopy density. In previous studies, large area tree canopy density had been estimated at spatial resolutions of 1km or coarser using coarse resolution satellite images. In this study, a strategy is developed for estimating...

To address the need for a flexible model of the bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) that is also suitable for inversion, the FLAIR Model (Four-Scale Linear Model for AnIsotropic Reflectance) has been developed [1]. Based on the more detailed Four-Scale Model [2], FLAIR is a linear kernel-like model, developed with the aim of not being limited to specific canopy characteristic...

To address the need for a flexible model of the bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) that is also suitable for inversion, the FLAIR Model (Four-Scale Linear Model for AnIsotropic Reflectance) has been developed [1]. Based on the more detailed Four-Scale Model [2], FLAIR is a linear kernel-like model, developed with the aim of not being limited to specific canopy characteristic...

a r t i c l e i n f o Post-fire regrowth is an important component of carbon dynamics in Canada's boreal forests, yet observations of structural development following fire are lacking across this remote and expansive region. Here, we used Landsat time-series data (1985–2010) to detect high-severity fires in the Boreal Shield West ecozone of Canada, and assessed post-fire structure for N 600 bur...

Representation of the canopy hydrological processes has been challenging in land surface modeling due to the subgrid heterogeneity in both precipitation and surface characteristics. The Shuttleworth dynamic– statistical method is widely used to represent the impact of the precipitation subgrid variability on canopy hydrological processes but shows unwanted sensitivity to temporal resolution whe...