We compared fruiting data derived simultaneously from fruit traps placed on the ground and from canopy-surveyed plots in a terra firme rain forest, Colombian Amazonia. Values derived from the canopy-surveyed plots were higher than fruit-trap estimates. Fruiting patterns obtained throughout both methods were not correlated. Our results showed that the fruit-trap method does not accurately reflec...

Ant-aphid mutualism is known to play a key role in the structure of the arthropod community in the tree canopy, but its possible ecological effects for the forest floor are unknown. We hypothesized that aphids in the canopy can increase the abundance of ants on the forest floor, thus intensifying the impacts of ants on other arthropods on the forest floor. We tested this hypothesis in a deciduo...

Aim Previous studies have developed strong, site-specific relationships between canopy metrics from lidar (light detecting and ranging) remote sensing data and forest structural characteristics such as above-ground biomass (AGBM), but the generality of these relationships is unknown. In this study, we examine the generality of relationships between lidar metrics and forest structural characteri...

Forest fragmentation results in a loss of forest interior and an increase in edge habitat. We studied how understorey bird community composition and habitat variables changed along an edge-to-interior gradient in a 1248-ha lowland rainforest patch in peninsular Malaysia. Birds and environmental variables such as vegetation structure and litter depth were detected within a 25-m radius of each of...

Recent Amazonian droughts have drawn attention to the vulnerability of tropical forests to climate perturbations. Satellite and in situ observations have shown an increase in fire occurrence during drought years and tree mortality following severe droughts, but to date there has been no assessment of long-term impacts of these droughts across landscapes in Amazonia. Here, we use satellite micro...

Detailed knowledge of light interactions between the atmosphere and vegetation, and within vegetation are of particular interest for terrestrial carbon cycle studies and optical remote sensing. This study describes a model for 3-D canopy radiative transfer that is directly coupled with an atmospheric radiative transfer model (Forest Light Environmental Simulator, FLiES). The model was developed...

Tropical rainforests have experienced episodes of severe heat and drought in recent decades, and climate models project a warmer and potentially drier tropical climate over this century. However, likely responses of tropical rainforests are poorly understood due to a lack of frequent long-term measurements of forest structure and dynamics. We analyzed a 12-year record (1999-2010) of 47 817 annu...

A forest canopy is a complex system with a highly structural multi-scale architecture. Physical based radiative transfer (RT) modelling has been shown to be an effective tool for retrieval of vegetation canopy biochemical/physical characteristics from optical remote sensing data. A high spatial resolution RT through a forest canopy requires several geometrical and structural parameters of trees...

Solar radiation directly and indirectly drives a variety of ecosystem processes. Our aim was to evaluate how tree canopy architecture affects near-ground, incoming solar radiation along gradients of increasing tree cover, referred to as the grassland–forest continuum. We evaluated a common type of canopy architecture: tall trees that generally have their lowest level of foliage high above, rath...