Article
Agronomy
Francesco Chianucci, Martin Macek
Summary: Hemispherical photography is a useful tool for estimating canopy attributes, and the hemispheR software package provides an automated and reproducible way of processing fisheye images to retrieve LAI and other attributes. The package supports both circular and fullframe fisheye images with different camera orientations, and can be combined with other R packages for advanced analysis.
AGRICULTURAL AND FOREST METEOROLOGY
(2023)
Article
Biology
Jefferson Medina, Wilson Quizhpe, Jorge Deleg, Karina Gonzalez, Zhofre Aguirre, Nikolay Aguirre, Luis Montano, Angel Benitez
Summary: This study evaluated the richness and composition of epiphytic bryophytes in Neotropical montane forests, finding that mixed plantations had higher bryophyte richness but were negatively impacted by a more open canopy compared to secondary forests.
Article
Forestry
Vaclav Zumra, Oto Nakladal, Jiri Remes, Tereza Brestovanska, Vaclav Zumr
Summary: The study found that changes in tree species composition and stand structure significantly affect the communities of click beetles, leading to substantial changes in their species composition and response to external influences. Therefore, managing stands using diverse silvicultural systems is recommended to increase ecological diversity in forests.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Christopher H. Lusk
Summary: CanopyCapture is an application that can rapidly estimate the canopy gap fraction without any user input and has an intuitive leveling mechanism. It can be used to compare the average canopy gap fraction in different stands/forests, but it has low sensitivity for high-resolution comparisons of the light environments of individual understorey plants within a stand.
Article
Forestry
Yihan Cai, Takahiro Nishimura, Hideyuki Ida, Mitsuru Hirota
Summary: This study demonstrated significant positive correlations between canopy openness and soil water content, which influenced the spatial variation in soil respiration in a mature beech forest. The findings suggest that canopy structure plays a role in determining soil respiration patterns, providing new insights for forest carbon management.
FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT
(2021)
Article
Agriculture, Multidisciplinary
Lingbo Dong, Pete Bettinger, Zhaogang Liu
Summary: Accelerating the recovery and successional processes of secondary forests is crucial for sustainable forest management. This study developed a tree-level harvest decision tool that can optimize the stand structure of the overstory while accounting for adjustments in the light environment of the understory. The tool improved the light conditions for Pinus koraiensis and increased the species mingling and horizontal distribution of the overstory.
COMPUTERS AND ELECTRONICS IN AGRICULTURE
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Hilary A. Cameron, Gaston M. Diaz, Jennifer L. Beverly
Summary: By using hemispherical photographs taken with a smartphone and fisheye lens attachment to derive CO and LAI values, an inexpensive and effective method for estimating canopy fuel load in the field has been developed.
METHODS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2021)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Jonathan L. Batchelor, Todd M. Wilson, Michael J. Olsen, William J. Ripple
Summary: We have developed new measures of structural complexity using single point terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) point clouds. These metrics, which include depth, openness, and isovist, can accurately capture the structural complexity of forests without observer bias. They have the potential to quantify structural change in forest ecosystems, measure the effects of forest management activities, and describe habitat for organisms.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Bitam Ali, Feng Zhao, Zhenjiang Li, Qichao Zhao, Jiabei Gong, Lin Wang, Peng Tong, Yanhong Jiang, Wei Su, Yunfei Bao, Juan Li
Summary: The maturity and affordability of LiDAR sensors enable quick acquisition of 3D point cloud data for monitoring vegetation canopy traits, but there are few studies on reconstructing 3D structures and extracting fine-scale parameters from terrestrial LiDAR data, posing challenges in requiring large datasets for representation of canopy components.
Article
Ecology
Amanda F. Cerqueira, Larissa Rocha-Santos, Maira Benchimol, Marcelo S. Mielke
Summary: The study found that young plants tend to occur in shaded environments. E. edulis successfully acclimated in six of the nine traits analyzed, with most traits being affected by local and landscape features. The lack of variation in traits related to protection against herbivory may limit the species establishment in highly deforested landscapes.
Article
Forestry
Emily Russavage, Jake Thiele, Joanna Lumbsden-Pinto, Kathy Schwager, Tim Green, Martin Dovciak
Summary: Canopy openness in forest ecosystems has significant impacts on forest regeneration and biodiversity. Foresters need to accurately measure canopy openness, and the study found that using quick and cheap methods, such as spherical densiometers, can sufficiently characterize canopy openness while avoiding the larger costs and complexities of other methods.
JOURNAL OF FORESTRY
(2021)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Samuel P. Reed, Alejandro A. Royo, Alexander T. Fotis, Kathleen S. Knight, Charles E. Flower, Peter S. Curtis
Summary: High browsing pressure from white-tailed deer during stand initiation can have a long-term impact on stand and canopy structure, leading to lower species diversity and tree density, resulting in taller and less dense canopies. Considering the legacy of ungulate herbivory on canopy structure may inform both land management and our understanding of ecological function.
JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Entomology
Yutaro Okatsu, Tadaaki Tsutsumi
Summary: The study found that the assemblage structure of carabid beetles in traditionally managed seminatural grasslands differs from that in old beech forests, with several forest species present in the grasslands. The responses of carabid species to annual mowing and prescribed burning in the grasslands were minimal, and a rare species, Harpalus roninus, was identified as a characteristic species of the studied grassland. Redundancy analysis revealed different factors influencing the abundant grassland species and common forest species.
ENVIRONMENTAL ENTOMOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Jeff W. Atkins, Jonathan A. Walter, Atticus E. L. Stovall, Robert T. Fahey, Christopher M. Gough
Summary: Forest canopy structural complexity (CSC) increases as a power law of forest height, with differences observed in evergreen needleleaf forests compared to other forest types. The relationship between forest height and CSC has broad implications for modeling, scaling, and mapping forest structural attributes.
FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Radek Bace, Jenyk Hofmeister, Lucie Vitkova, Marek Brabec, Kresimir Begovic, Vojtech Cada, Pavel Janda, Daniel Kozak, Martin Mikolas, Thomas A. Nagel, Jakob Pavlin, Ruffy Rodrigo, Ondrej Vostarek, Miroslav Svoboda
Summary: Natural disturbances can change forest habitat quality, but it is uncertain how this change will be affected by increasing extent and intensity of disturbances under climate change. To understand this, we studied habitat quality in European primary Norway spruce forests using a space-for-time substitution approach. We found that post-disturbance habitat succession has a U-shaped response on plot-scale habitat quality, with greater decline in quality as disturbance severity increases.
JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Achim Hager, Gerardo Avalos
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Juan Manuel Ley-Lopez, Gerardo Avalos
TROPICAL CONSERVATION SCIENCE
(2017)
Article
Plant Sciences
Gerardo Avalos, Mauricio Fernandez Otarola
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BOTANY
(2010)
Article
Plant Sciences
Olivia Sylvester, Gerardo Avalos
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BOTANY
(2013)
Article
Plant Sciences
Mauricio Fernandez Otarola, Gerardo Avalos
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BOTANY
(2014)
Article
Plant Sciences
Gerardo Avalos, Stephen S. Mulkey
AMERICAN JOURNAL OF BOTANY
(2014)
Article
Ornithology
Natalie V. Sanchez, Luis E. Vargas-Castro, Gerardo Avalos, Federico Paniagua
JOURNAL OF FIELD ORNITHOLOGY
(2014)
Article
Ecology
Gerardo Avalos, Maga Gei, Luis Diego Rios, Mauricio Fernandez Otarola, Milena Cambronero, Carolina Alvarez-Vergnani, Olivia Sylvester, Gustavo Rojas
Article
Ecology
Gerardo Avalos, Milena Cambronero, Carolina Alvarez-Vergnani
Summary: Functional traits are important characteristics that determine plant growth, reproduction, and survival strategies. The leaf economics spectrum suggests that canopy species tend to have an acquisitive strategy, while understory species tend to have a conservative strategy. Understanding the variation in functional traits in palms helps us gain insights into how plants adapt to environmental gradients.
Article
Forestry
Gerardo Avalos
Summary: The specific leaf area (SLA) is a key trait in the leaf economics spectrum and can predict the carbon content in understory palms of Socratea exorrhiza at the individual level. Understanding intraspecific and ontogenetic variation in SLA is crucial for assessing the plant's fitness and regeneration strategies. This study measured SLA in 112 palms of Socratea exorrhiza and found that it correlated with the total carbon content. The analysis also revealed two components that explained most of the variation in functional traits.
TREES-STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION
(2023)
Article
Biology
Gerardo Avalos
REVISTA DE BIOLOGIA TROPICAL
(2019)
Article
Biology
Juan Manuel Ley-Lopez, Gerardo Avalos, Eduardo Chacon-Madrigal
REVISTA DE BIOLOGIA TROPICAL
(2016)
Article
Biology
Gerardo Avalos, Esteban Bermudez
REVISTA DE BIOLOGIA TROPICAL
(2016)
Article
Biology
Gerardo Avalos, Alejandra Soto, Willy Alfaro
REVISTA DE BIOLOGIA TROPICAL
(2012)