Search results for "canopy"

Performance of Spectral Fitting Methods for vegetation fluorescence quantification

2010

The Fraunhofer Line Discriminator (FLD) principle has long been considered as the reference method to quantify solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (F) from passive remote sensing measurements. Recently, alternative retrieval algorithms based on the spectral fitting of hyperspectral radiance observations, Spectral Fitting Methods (SFMs), have been proposed. The aim of this manuscript is to investigate the performance of such algorithms and to provide relevant information regarding their use. FLD and SFMs were used to estimate F starting from Top Of Canopy (TOC) fluxes at very high spectral resolution (0.12 nm) and sampling interval (0.1 nm), exploiting the O2-B (687.0 nm) and O2-A (760.6 …

Fruit yield and quality responses of apple cvars Gala and Fuji to partial rootzone drying under Mediterranean conditions

2012

SUMMARYIncreasing irrigation efficiency is a major goal for fruit production in dry Mediterranean environments. The present study was conducted in three consecutive years (2007–09) under typical Mediterranean conditions and tested the effect of partial rootzone drying (PRD) on yield and fruit quality of two apple cultivars: Gala, with fruit maturing in summer and Fuji, with fruit maturing in autumn. Three irrigation treatments were imposed: conventional irrigation (CI), PRD (0·50 of CI water on one side of the rootzone, which was alternated periodically) and continuous deficit irrigation (DI, 0·50 of CI water on both sides of the rootzone). During the 2008 and 2009 irrigation seasons, DI re…

The scattering and re-absorption of red and near-infrared chlorophyll fluorescence in the models Fluspect and SCOPE

2019

Scattering and re-absorption have been recognized as relevant aspects for the interpretation of solar induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) in vegetation remote sensing. In an earlier study [Yang and Van der Tol, RSE 215, 97–108, 2018] we addressed the problem of scattering and re-absorption of near-infrared fluorescence in the vegetation canopy. In this study we analyse within-leaf re-absorption of both red and near-infrared fluorescence using the radiative transfer model Fluspect. The leaf scattering determines the ratio of backward to total leaf fluorescence emission Fb/(Fb + Ff). Fluspect reproduces this ratio with an RMSE of less than 0.1, and explains the observed dependence of the s…

Spatial distribution of saplings in heavily worn urban forests: Implications for regeneration and management

2012

Abstract We studied the spatial distribution of saplings in the vicinity of other saplings and mature trees in heavily worn urban forests. Our aim was to identify favorable microsites for saplings to regenerate under different levels of wear. We hypothesized that these safe microsites were situated close to tree trunks that might offer shelter from trampling caused by humans and their pet dogs. The distribution of saplings was explored at 0.1–0.6 m to the nearest sapling and 0.1–2 m to the nearest mature tree. Sorbus aucuparia was the most abundant sapling species, followed by Populus tremula , Betula pubescens and Picea abies . These species all tended to cluster with their conspecific sap…

The structure of ant assemblages in an urban area of Helsinki, southern Finland

2008

We collected ants in ten replicated habitat types of an urban island and described their assemblages using Non-metric Multidimensional Scaling and Multivariate Regression Trees. Lasius niger was the most abundant species, followed by Myrmica rubra, Formica fusca, L. flavus and L. platythorax; these species comprised 87% of all 1133 nests of the 16 species found. Ant assemblages changed gradually from open habitats to sites with closed tree canopy. Species most tolerant to urban pressure were L. niger, L. flavus and M. rugulosa, whereas forest-associated species were scarce or absent. Successful urban species had extensive (Palaearctic) or more limited (Euro-Siberian) distribution. Common an…

Fish introductions and light modulate food web fluxes in tropical streams: a whole-ecosystem experimental approach.

2016

Decades of ecological study have demonstrated the importance of top-down and bottom-up controls on food webs, yet few studies within this context have quantified the magnitude of energy and material fluxes at the whole-ecosystem scale. We examined top-down and bottom-up effects on food web fluxes using a field experiment that manipulated the presence of a consumer, the Trinidadian guppy Poecilia reticulata, and the production of basal resources by thinning the riparian forest canopy to increase incident light. To gauge the effects of these reach-scale manipulations on food web fluxes, we used a nitrogen (15 N) stable isotope tracer to compare basal resource treatments (thinned canopy vs. co…

Modeling and simulation of dense cloud dispersion in urban areas by means of computational fluid dynamics

2011

Abstract The formation of toxic heavy clouds as a result of sudden accidental releases from mobile containers, such as road tankers or railway tank cars, may occur inside urban areas so the problem arises of their consequences evaluation. Due to the semi-confined nature of the dispersion site simplified models may often be inappropriate. As an alternative, computational fluid dynamics (CFD) has the potential to provide realistic simulations even for geometrically complex scenarios since the heavy gas dispersion process is described by basic conservation equations with a reduced number of approximations. In the present work a commercial general purpose CFD code (CFX 4.4 by Ansys®) is employe…

2012

Abstract. Ambient total OH reactivity was measured at the Finnish boreal forest station SMEAR II in Hyytiälä (Latitude 61°51' N; Longitude 24°17' E) in July and August 2010 using the Comparative Reactivity Method (CRM). The CRM – total OH reactivity method – is a direct, in-situ determination of the total loss rate of hydroxyl radicals (OH) caused by all reactive species in air. During the intensive field campaign HUMPPA-COPEC 2010 (Hyytiälä United Measurements of Photochemistry and Particles in Air – Comprehensive Organic Precursor Emission and Concentration study) the total OH reactivity was monitored both inside (18 m) and directly above the forest canopy (24 m) for the first time. The c…

Atmospheric dry deposition processes of particles on urban and suburban surfaces: Modelling and validation works

2019

Abstract Dry deposition process is one of the important pathways for the removal of particles from atmosphere. It is the result of a combination of different environmental and physical factors as atmospheric conditions, particle properties, characteristics of the canopy. For this latter factor, urban canopy represents unevenly combinations of different types of surface elements that increases the complexity of deposition process phenomena. Therefore, particle dry deposition on urban surfaces is not easy to configure and, although empirical or semi-empirical models in literature have been developed to address this aspect, there is not standardized and commonly accepted criteria, especially f…

The impact of in-canopy wind profile formulations on heat flux estimation in an open orchard using the remote sensing-based two-source model

2010

Abstract. For open orchard and vineyard canopies containing significant fractions of exposed soil (>50%), typical of Mediterranean agricultural regions, the energy balance of the vegetation elements is strongly influenced by heat exchange with the bare soil/substrate. For these agricultural systems a "two-source" approach, where radiation and turbulent exchange between the soil and canopy elements are explicitly modelled, appears to be the only suitable methodology for reliably assessing energy fluxes. In strongly clumped canopies, the effective wind speed profile inside and below the canopy layer can strongly influence the partitioning of energy fluxes between the soil and vegetation co…