Leaf inclination angle and foliage clumping in an evergreen broadleaf Eucalyptus forest under elevated atmospheric CO2
Jan Pisek
A * , Ladislava Řezníčková B C , Kairi Adamson A and David S. Ellsworth D
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Tartu Observatory, University of Tartu, Observatooriumi 1, Tõravere 61602, Tartumaa, Estonia.
B Institute of Geography, Masaryk University, Brno 61137, Czech Republic.
C Global Change Research Institute, Czech Academy of Sciences, Brno 60300, Czech Republic.
D Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment, Western Sydney University, Penrith, NSW 2751, Australia.
Australian Journal of Botany 69(8) 622-629 https://doi.org/10.1071/BT21035
Submitted: 10 March 2021 Accepted: 13 July 2021 Published: 19 October 2021
© 2021 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing
Abstract
How leaves are presented affects interaction of atmospheric CO2, energy (light), and plant physiology. Plant productivity is primarily determined by the amount of leaf area, leaf orientation and distribution in space. Not much attention has been paid to possible changes in leaf orientation and distribution with elevated CO2, but its effect on plant growth could alter the proportions of sunlit and shaded leaf areas and feedback on carbohydrate available for further growth. We report on first measurements of leaf inclination angle distribution and foliage clumping in a native evergreen Eucalyptus woodland in ambient CO2 and under +150 ppm elevated CO2. We found that a spherical leaf angle distribution was not an appropriate supposition for present species (Eucalyptus tereticornis Sm.) at this site. Our measurements of leaf inclination angles from imagery indicated an erectophile, highly skewed unimodal leaf inclination angle distribution function. We conclude that despite the measured steeper angles under elevated CO2 concentrations, the leaf angle change is not significant and falls within the expected natural variability and uncertainties connected with the measurement method. The lack of a clear response of leaf orientation and foliage clumping to elevated CO2 concentration indicates that the previously produced datasets of leaf inclination angles and foliage clumping maps with Earth observation data may be suitable while modelling carbon and water cycles under climate change.
Keywords: Eucalpytus woodland, EucFACE, foliage clumping, free-air CO2 enrichment, hemispherical photography, leaf angle distribution, leveled digital photography, optical canopy instrumentation.
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