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Abstract
The canopy foliage clumping effect is primarily caused by the non-random distribution of canopy foliage. Currently, measurements of clumping index (CI) by handheld instruments is typically time- and labor-intensive. We propose a low-cost and low-power automatic measurement system called Multi-point Linear Array of Optical Sensors (MLAOS), which consists of three above-canopy and nine below-canopy optical sensors that capture plant transmittance at different times of the day. Data communication between the MLAOS node is facilitated by using a ZigBee network, and the data are transmitted from the field MLAOS to a remote data server using the Internet. The choice of the electronic element and design of the MLAOS software is aimed at reducing costs and power consumption. A power consumption test showed that, when a 4000 mAH Li-ion battery is used, a maximum of 8–10 months of work can be achieved. A field experiment on a coniferous forest revealed that the CI of MLAOS may reveal a clumping effect that occurs within the canopy. In further work, measurement of the multi-scale clumping effect can be achieved by utilizing a greater number of MLAOS devices to capture the heterogeneity of the plant canopy.
Highlights
Coniferous forest structure parameters, such as the clumping index (CI) and leaf area index (LAI), are major factors influencing the capacity of vegetation to intercept solar radiation for photosynthesis.The definition of the CI is related to the measurement of the LAI, which is defined as half of the total leaf area per unit ground surface area [1]
This paper describes the design and implementation of an optical sensor system, Multi-point Linear Array of Optical Sensors (MLAOS), which can automatically obtain a coniferous forest clumping index (CI) measurement
Based on indoor power consumption tests of the instrument and a field validation experiment, the following conclusions can be made from the results: (1) The low power consumption design of MLAOS can ensure that the system realizes prolonged unattended operation
Summary
Coniferous forest structure parameters, such as the clumping index (CI) and leaf area index (LAI), are major factors influencing the capacity of vegetation to intercept solar radiation for photosynthesis.The definition of the CI is related to the measurement of the LAI, which is defined as half of the total leaf area per unit ground surface area [1]. The indirect measurement of LAI using optical sensors generally assumes that the foliage is randomly distributed in the canopy [2,3,4,5,6]; the distribution of foliage is spatially confined in the natural world and not random [7,8,9,10,11]. The extent to which the foliage is clumped is inversely proportional to CI; that is, the more the CI approaches 1, the less obvious the clumping effect and the more the foliage tends to be randomly distributed. The measured LAI is an effective leaf area index (LAIe), which is the product of the true leaf area index and clumping index
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