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LeafArea: an R package for rapid digital image analysis of leaf area

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Ecological Research

Abstract

Measuring leaf area is essential to quantifying other leaf functional traits. This paper introduces a new R package, LeafArea, which allows one to conveniently run ImageJ (http://imagej.nih.gov/ij/) within R. The functions in this package analyze multiple scanned leaf images in the target directory, generate multiple output files containing the leaf area of each leaf image, and then process and combine these files into a single file in a format that is convenient for subsequent analyses. Leaf area data from multiple images from the same sample can be combined automatically. This function allows users to cut large leaves into several pieces during scanning. The package provides a user-friendly, automated tool for measuring leaf area from scanned images.

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Acknowledgments

I thank M. Aiba for assistance with the R script. I also thank J. Lichstein, S. Rifai, Y. Onoda and the two anonymous referees for helpful comments on the manuscript. MK was supported by a Postdoctoral Fellowship for Research Abroad from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science.

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Correspondence to Masatoshi Katabuchi.

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Katabuchi, M. LeafArea: an R package for rapid digital image analysis of leaf area. Ecol Res 30, 1073–1077 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-015-1307-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11284-015-1307-x

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