Light regimes beneath closed canopies and tree-fall gaps in temperate and tropical forests

1990 ◽  
Vol 20 (5) ◽  
pp. 620-631 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charles D. Canham ◽  
Julie S. Denslow ◽  
William J. Platt ◽  
James R. Runkle ◽  
Tom A. Spies ◽  
...  

Light regimes beneath closed canopies and tree-fall gaps are compared for five temperate and tropical forests using fish-eye photography of intact forest canopies and a model for calculating light penetration through idealized gaps. Beneath intact canopies, analyses of canopy photographs indicate that sunflecks potentially contribute 37–68% of seasonal total photosynthetically active radiation. In all of the forests, potential sunfleck duration is brief (4–6 min), but the frequency distributions of potential sunfleck duration vary because of differences in canopy geometry and recent disturbance history. Analysis of the photographs reveals that incidence angles for photosynthetically active radiation beneath closed canopies are not generally vertical for any of the forests, but there was considerable variation both among and within sites in the contribution of overhead versus low-angle lighting. Calculations of light penetration through idealized single-tree gaps in old growth Douglas-fir – hemlock forests indicate that such gaps have little effect on understory light regimes because of the high ratio of canopy height to gap diameter. However, single-tree gaps in the other four forest types produce significant overall increases in understory light levels. There is also significant spatial variation in seasonal total radiation in and around single-tree gaps. Our results demonstrate that there can be significant penetration of light into the understory adjacent to a gap, particularly at high latitudes. As gap size increases, both the mean and the range of light levels within the gap increases, but even in large gaps (ca. 1000 m2) the potential duration of direct sunlight is generally brief (<4 h). The major differences in gap light regimes of the five forests are largely a function of canopy height and latitude. The effects of latitude should also result in differences in gap light regimes across the geographic range of individual forest types.

2008 ◽  
Vol 38 (9) ◽  
pp. 2337-2347 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lile Hu ◽  
Jiaojun Zhu

Understory light is essential to the establishment and growth of understory plants and varies temporally and spatially within gaps. The previously defined gap light index (GLI) is a good model for assessing understory light levels, but it is time-consuming to determine gap coordinates, which are crucial to GLI, for numerous points within a gap. This paper introduces the geometric calculation (GeoCalc) of gap coordinates. GeoCalc quickly obtains gap coordinates for any specified point within a canopy gap and takes into account the tridimensional profile of the gap and the slope and aspect of the ground. The GeoCalc-based GLI was validated by the GLI derived from hemispherical photographs taken at 93 sampling points within seven natural gaps. Our results demonstrate that GeoCalc-based GLI was strongly positively correlated and not significantly differed from the GLI derived from hemispherical photographs. Next, to analyze gap light regimes and the effects of gap size, canopy height, and topography, three natural gaps of various size were selected and simulated as nine gaps with 1 and 1.5 times canopy height or on the opposite slope. Finally, we have summarized characteristics of GeoCalc-based GLI and its application.


1984 ◽  
Vol 35 (5) ◽  
pp. 517 ◽  
Author(s):  
NJ Hickman ◽  
PE McShane ◽  
DM Axelrad

Variation in the light climate of Lakes Wellington, Victoria and King, Gippsland, Vic. occurred both seasonally and between the three lakes studied. Absorption of photosynthetically active radiation was related primarily to concentration of non-chlorophyllous particulate material (tripton) with dissolved organic material (gilvin) and particulate chlorophyll being of lesser importance in influencing light climate. Lake waters were characterized by selective attenuation of red (650-700 nm wavelength) and blue (400-500 nm wavelength) quanta with depth. .Though most photosynthetically active radiation in Lake Wellington was removed in the first 1 m of depth, phytoplankton biomass was higher than in Lake King which had more available light. Vertical mixing, resulting in periodic exposure of phytoplankton to surface light levels, is suggested as a mechanism whereby the relatively high phytoplankton biomass of Lake Wellington is maintained.


1992 ◽  
Vol 62 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 87-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
K.G. McNaughton ◽  
S.R. Green ◽  
T.A. Black ◽  
B.R. Tynan ◽  
W.R.N. Edwards

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (22) ◽  
pp. 2697 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Camilo Fagua ◽  
Patrick Jantz ◽  
Susana Rodriguez-Buritica ◽  
Laura Duncanson ◽  
Scott J. Goetz

Developing accurate methods to map vegetation structure in tropical forests is essential to protect their biodiversity and improve their carbon stock estimation. We integrated LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging), multispectral and SAR (Synthetic Aperture Radar) data to improve the prediction and mapping of canopy height (CH) at high spatial resolution (30 m) in tropical forests in South America. We modeled and mapped CH estimated from aircraft LiDAR surveys as a ground reference, using annual metrics derived from multispectral and SAR satellite imagery in a dry forest, a moist forest, and a rainforest of tropical South America. We examined the effect of the three forest types, five regression algorithms, and three predictor groups on the modelling and mapping of CH. Our CH models reached errors ranging from 1.2–3.4 m in the dry forest and 5.1–7.4 m in the rainforest and explained variances from 94–60% in the dry forest and 58–12% in the rainforest. Our best models show higher accuracies than previous works in tropical forests. The average accuracy of the five regression algorithms decreased from dry forests (2.6 m +/− 0.7) to moist (5.7 m +/− 0.4) and rainforests (6.6 m +/− 0.7). Random Forest regressions produced the most accurate models in the three forest types (1.2 m +/− 0.05 in the dry, 4.9 m +/− 0.14 in the moist, and 5.5 m +/− 0.3 the rainforest). Model performance varied considerably across the three predictor groups. Our results are useful for CH spatial prediction when GEDI (Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation lidar) data become available.


Nature Plants ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shiji Hou ◽  
Thorsten Thiergart ◽  
Nathan Vannier ◽  
Fantin Mesny ◽  
Jörg Ziegler ◽  
...  

AbstractBidirectional root–shoot signalling is probably key in orchestrating stress responses and ensuring plant survival. Here, we show that Arabidopsis thaliana responses to microbial root commensals and light are interconnected along a microbiota–root–shoot axis. Microbiota and light manipulation experiments in a gnotobiotic plant system reveal that low photosynthetically active radiation perceived by leaves induces long-distance modulation of root bacterial communities but not fungal or oomycete communities. Reciprocally, microbial commensals alleviate plant growth deficiency under low photosynthetically active radiation. This growth rescue was associated with reduced microbiota-induced aboveground defence responses and altered resistance to foliar pathogens compared with the control light condition. Inspection of a set of A. thaliana mutants reveals that this microbiota- and light-dependent growth–defence trade-off is directly explained by belowground bacterial community composition and requires the host transcriptional regulator MYC2. Our work indicates that aboveground stress responses in plants can be modulated by signals from microbial root commensals.


Agriculture ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 351
Author(s):  
Adolfo Rosati ◽  
Damiano Marchionni ◽  
Dario Mantovani ◽  
Luigi Ponti ◽  
Franco Famiani

We quantified the photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) interception in a high-density (HD) and a super high-density (SHD) or hedgerow olive system, by measuring the PAR transmitted under the canopy along transects at increasing distance from the tree rows. Transmitted PAR was measured every minute, then cumulated over the day and the season. The frequencies of the different PAR levels occurring during the day were calculated. SHD intercepted significantly but slightly less overall PAR than HD (0.57 ± 0.002 vs. 0.62 ± 0.03 of the PAR incident above the canopy) but had a much greater spatial variability of transmitted PAR (0.21 under the tree row, up to 0.59 in the alley center), compared to HD (range: 0.34–0.43). This corresponded to greater variability in the frequencies of daily PAR values, with the more shaded positions receiving greater frequencies of low PAR values. The much lower PAR level under the tree row in SHD, compared to any position in HD, implies greater self-shading in lower-canopy layers, despite similar overall interception. Therefore, knowing overall PAR interception does not allow an understanding of differences in PAR distribution on the ground and within the canopy and their possible effects on canopy radiation use efficiency (RUE) and performance, between different architectural systems.


2008 ◽  
Vol 47 (3) ◽  
pp. 853-868 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tao Zheng ◽  
Shunlin Liang ◽  
Kaicun Wang

Abstract Incident photosynthetically active radiation (PAR) is an important parameter for terrestrial ecosystem models. Because of its high temporal resolution, the Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) observations are very suited to catch the diurnal variation of PAR. In this paper, a new method is developed to derive PAR using GOES data. What makes this new method distinct from the existing method is that it does not need external knowledge of atmospheric conditions. The new method retrieves both atmospheric and surface conditions using only at-sensor radiance through interpolation of time series of observations. Validations against ground measurement are carried out at four “FLUXNET” sites. The values of RMSE of estimated and ground-measured instantaneous PAR at the four sites are 130.71, 131.44, 141.16, and 190.22 μmol m−2 s−1, respectively. At the four validation sites, the RMSE as the percentage of estimated mean PAR value are 9.52%, 13.01%, 13.92%, and 24.09%, respectively; the biases are −101.54, 16.56, 11.09, and 53.64 μmol m−2 s−1, respectively. The independence of external atmospheric information enables this method to be applicable to many situations in which external atmospheric information is not available. In addition, topographic impacts on surface PAR are examined at the 1-km resolution at which PAR is retrieved using the GOES visible band data.


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