The canopy, which is the aggregate of leaves, branches and twigs in a stand or a crop, is the active interface between plants and atmosphere.
The canopy is the ‘area’ of greatest energy inputs, carbon and gas exchanges, and radiation extinction in vegetation ecosystem.
Compared with other components of the vegetation, canopy responds promptly to any biotic and abiotic disturbances, and therefore monitoring canopy is a key to understand ecosystem responses and adaptations in a changing climate.
Leaf area index (LAI) is one of the most widely used canopy attributes. Read most important LAI definitions and topics in selected Agriculture and Biological Science topic.
Forest canopy hosts most of the terrestrial biodiversity, but it is also one of the least understood environments, due to the difficulty to directly access it. For this reason, many indirect methods have been proposed in the last fifty years to infer LAI and canopy attributes from readily measurable attributes.
