Leaf traits and canopy structure together explain canopy functional diversity: an airborne remote sensing approach

Kamoske, Aaron G.; Dahlin, Kyla M.; Serbin, Shawn P.; Stark, Scott C.

doi:10.1002/eap.2230

Leaf traits and canopy structure together explain canopy functional diversity: an airborne remote sensing approach

Journal Article · Mon Oct 05 00:00:00 EDT 2020 · Ecological Applications

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2230· OSTI ID:1656438

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Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, MI (United States)
Brookhaven National Lab. (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)

Plant functional diversity is strongly connected to photosynthetic carbon assimilation in terrestrial ecosystems. However, many of the plant functional traits that regulate photosynthetic capacity, including foliar nitrogen concentration and leaf mass per area, vary significantly between and within plant functional types and vertically through forest canopies, resulting in considerable landscape-scale heterogeneity in three dimensions. Hyperspectral imagery has been used extensively to quantify functional traits across a range of ecosystems but is generally limited to providing information for top-of-canopy leaves only. On the other hand, lidar data can be used to retrieve the vertical structure of forest canopies. Because these data are rarely collected at the same time, there are unanswered questions about the effect of forest structure on the 3-D spatial patterns of functional traits across ecosystems. In the United States, the National Ecological Observatory Network's Airborne Observation Platform (NEON AOP) provides an opportunity to address this structure-function relationship by collecting lidar and hyperspectral data together across a variety of ecoregions. With a fusion of hyperspectral and lidar data from the NEON AOP and field-collected foliar trait data, we assessed the impacts of forest structure on spatial patterns of N. In addition, we examine the influence of abiotic gradients and management regimes on top of canopy %N and total canopy N (i.e. the total amount of N (g/m²) within a forest canopy) at a NEON site consisting of a mosaic of open longleaf pine and dense broadleaf deciduous forests. Here, our resulting maps suggest that in contrast with top-of-canopy values, total canopy N variation is dampened across this landscape resulting in relatively homogeneous spatial patterns. At the same time, we found that leaf functional diversity and canopy structural diversity showed distinct dendritic patterns related to the spatial distribution of plant functional types.

View Accepted Manuscript (DOE)

Research Organization:: Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL), Upton, NY (United States)

Sponsoring Organization:: National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER)

Grant/Contract Number:: SC0012704

OSTI ID:: 1656438

Report Number(s):: BNL--216302-2020-JAAM

Journal Information:: Ecological Applications, Journal Name: Ecological Applications Journal Issue: 2 Vol. 31; ISSN 1051-0761

Publisher:: Ecological Society of AmericaCopyright Statement

Country of Publication:: United States

Language:: English

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54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
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Leaf traits and canopy structure together explain canopy functional diversity: an airborne remote sensing approach

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