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...

The likelihood that continuing greenhouse-gas emissions will lead to an unmanageable degree of climate change has stimulated the search for planetary-scale technological solutions for reducing global warming ("geoengineering"), typically characterized by the necessity for costly new infrastructures and industries. We suggest that the existing global infrastructure associated with arable agricul...

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...

Amazonian tree communities have already been seriously impacted by extreme natural droughts, and intense droughts are predicted to increase in frequency. However, our current knowledge of Amazonian tree species’ responses to water stress remains limited, as plant trait databases include few drought tolerance traits, impeding the application and predictive power of models. Here we explored how l...

The effects of CO2 enrichment on the growth and physiology of maize were investigated at the molecular, biochemical, leaf, and canopy levels. Maize plants were grown in sunlit soil–plant–atmosphere research (SPAR) chambers at ambient (370 lmol mol ) or elevated (750 lmol mol ) atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration (Ca) under wellwatered and fertilized conditions. Canopy gas exchange rates an...

Leaf dark respiration (R) and its temperature sensitivity are essential for efforts to model carbon fluxes in tropical forests under current and future temperature regimes, but insufficient data exist to generalize patterns of R in species-rich tropical forests. Here, we tested the hypothesis that R and its temperature sensitivity (expressed as Q10, the proportional increase in R with a 10 °C r...

Photoinhibition reduces photosynthetic productivity; however, it is difficult to quantify accurately in complex canopies partly because of a lack of high-resolution structural data on plant canopy architecture, which determines complex fluctuations of light in space and time. Here, we evaluate the effects of photoinhibition on long-term carbon gain (over 1 d) in three different wheat (Triticum ...

Lianas impose intense resource competition for light in the upper forest canopy by displaying dense foliage on top of tree crowns. Using repeated access with a construction crane, we studied the patterns of canopy colonization of the lianas Combretum fruticosum and Bonamia trichantha in a Neotropical dry forest in Panama. Combretum fruticosum flushed leaves just before the rainy season, and its...

Leaf inclination angle distribution is an important canopy structure characteristic which directly impacts the fraction of the intercepted solar radiation. Together with the leaf area index (LAI) it determines the structure and fractional cover of a homogeneous crop canopy. Unfortunately, this key canopy parameter has usually been ignored when applying common multispectral vegetation indices to...

Relationship between fraction of radiation absorbed by photosynthesizing maize and soybean canopies and NDVI from remotely sensed data taken at close range and from MODIS 250 m resolution data" a b s t r a c t a r t i c l e i n f o The fraction of incident photosynthetically active radiation absorbed by the photosynthesizing tissue in a canopy (fAPAR) is a key variable in the assessment of vege...