A field test of forest canopy structure measurements with the CanopyCapture smartphone application.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Several smartphone applications have been developed for the purpose of low-cost and convenient assessments of vegetation canopy structure and understorey illumination. Like standard hemispherical photography, most of these applications require user decisions about image processing, posing challenges for repeatability of measurements. Here I report a test of CanopyCapture, an application that instantaneously estimates percentage canopy gap fraction without any input from the user, and has the added advantage of an intuitive levelling mechanism.

Methods

Gap fraction estimates by CanopyCapture were compared with gap fraction values computed by the LAI-2200C Canopy Analyzer, in two contrasting evergreen temperate forests in New Zealand: an even-aged southern beech (

SUBMITTER: Lusk CH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9109689 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature