% IMPORTANT: The following is UTF-8 encoded. This means that in the presence
% of non-ASCII characters, it will not work with BibTeX 0.99 or older.
% Instead, you should use an up-to-date BibTeX implementation like “bibtex8” or
% “biber”.
@ARTICLE{George:901829,
author = {George, Jan-Peter and Yang, Wei and Kobayashi, Hideki and
Biermann, Tobias and Carrara, Arnaud and Cremonese, Edoardo
and Cuntz, Matthias and Fares, Silvano and Gerosa, Giacomo
and Grünwald, Thomas and Hase, Niklas and Heliasz, Michael
and Ibrom, Andreas and Knohl, Alexander and Kruijt, Bart and
Lange, Holger and Limousin, Jean-Marc and Loustau, Denis and
Lukeš, Petr and Marzuoli, Riccardo and Mölder, Meelis and
Montagnani, Leonardo and Neirynck, Johan and Peichl,
Matthias and Rebmann, Corinna and Schmidt, Marius and
Serrano, Francisco Ramon Lopez and Soudani, Kamel and
Vincke, Caroline and Pisek, Jan},
title = {{M}ethod comparison of indirect assessments of understory
leaf area index ({LAI}u): {A} case study across the extended
network of {ICOS} forest ecosystem sites in {E}urope},
journal = {Ecological indicators},
volume = {128},
issn = {1470-160X},
address = {Amsterdam [u.a.]},
publisher = {Elsevier Science},
reportid = {FZJ-2021-03852},
pages = {107841},
year = {2021},
abstract = {Leaf area index (LAI) is a key ecological indicator for
describing the structure of canopies and for modelling
energy exchange between atmosphere and biosphere. While LAI
of the forest overstory can be accurately assessed over
large spatial scales via remote sensing, LAI of the forest
understory (LAIu) is still largely ignored in ecological
studies and ecosystem modelling due to the fact that it is
often too complex to be destructively sampled or
approximated by other site parameters. Additionally, so far
only few attempts have been made to retrieve understory LAI
via remote sensing, because dense canopies with high LAI are
often hindering retrieval algorithms to produce meaningful
estimates for understory LAI. Consequently, the forest
understory still constitutes a poorly investigated research
realm impeding ecological studies to properly account for
its contribution to the energy absorption capacity of forest
stands. This study aims to compare three conceptually
different indirect retrieval methodologies for LAIu over a
diverse panel of forest understory types distributed across
Europe. For this we carried out near-to-surface measurements
of understory reflectance spectra as well as digital surface
photography over the extended network of Integrated Carbon
Observation System (ICOS) forest ecosystem sites. LAIu was
assessed by exploiting the empirical relationship between
vegetation cover and light absorption (Beer-Lambert- Bouguer
law) as well as by utilizing proposed relationships with two
prominent vegetation indices: normalized difference
vegetation index (NDVI) and simple ratio (SR). Retrievals
from the three methods were significantly correlated with
each other (r = 0.63–0.99, RMSE = 0.53–0.72), but
exhibited also significant bias depending on the LAI scale.
The NDVI based retrieval approach most likely overestimates
LAI at productive sites when LAIu > 2, while the simple
ratio algorithm overestimates LAIu at sites with sparse
understory vegetation and presence of litter or bare soil.
The purely empirical method based on the Beer-Lambert law of
light absorption seems to offer a good compromise, since it
provides reasonable LAIu values at both low and higher LAI
ranges. Surprisingly, LAIu variation among sites seems to be
largely decoupled from differences in climate and light
permeability of the overstory, but significantly increased
with vegetation diversity (expressed as species richness)
and hence proposes new applications of LAIu in ecological
modelling.},
cin = {IBG-3},
ddc = {630},
cid = {I:(DE-Juel1)IBG-3-20101118},
pnm = {2173 - Agro-biogeosystems: controls, feedbacks and impact
(POF4-217)},
pid = {G:(DE-HGF)POF4-2173},
typ = {PUB:(DE-HGF)16},
UT = {WOS:000663325100009},
doi = {10.1016/j.ecolind.2021.107841},
url = {https://juser.fz-juelich.de/record/901829},
}