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Canopy Leaf Area Index in Non-Forested Marshes of the California Delta

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Abstract

Leaf area index (LAI, one-sided leaf area per unit ground area) is an important parameter in models of canopy-atmosphere carbon exchange and greenhouse gas fluxes that has been disproportionately under-studied in wetland ecosystems. This study assessed variation in LAI and its sensitivity to canopy height, structure and remotely sensed normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) in the California Delta, USA in July–August 2014. Plant area index (PAI), an optically measured LAI proxy, significantly varied among wetland sites and vegetation types (p < 0.001). PAI significantly correlated with leaf inclination angle and above-water heights of canopy and standing litter, being on average higher in taller freshwater reeds with steeper leaf angles. Presence of litter contributed to within-site heterogeneity and overestimation of PAI at direct green LAI < 3. Although satellite-based NDVI strongly correlated with PAI (R2 = 0.63, p < 0.001), its application was constrained by presence of water and other non-vegetated backgrounds in wetland pixels. Overall, high within-site variation in LAI resulting from structural heterogeneity and/or vegetation diversity limits representativeness of mean LAI for ecosystem models. This constraint calls for more in-depth future analyses of the effects of vertical and horizontal wetland complexity on LAI measurements and performance as an indicator of light interception and canopy-based ecosystem function.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by the Delta Science/California Sea Grant Fellowship #R/SF-52. We thank Bryan Brock (California Department of Water Resources) and Patrick Graham, Sarah Estrella and Laureen Thompson (Grizzly Island Wildlife Area, California Department of Fish and Wildlife) for the help with access and selection of field sites. We thank Lisamarie Windham-Myers and Kristin Byrd from the U.S. Geological Survey for the advice and allometric equations for direct LAI in freshwater wetlands. We also thank Dennis Baldocchi, Sara Knox, Joseph Verfaillie, Cove Sturtevant, Laurie Coteen and Patty Oikawa at UC Berkeley’s Biometeorology Lab for research advice. We thank Clifford Wang, Christina Lew, Terrance Wang, Pascal Polonik and Kateryna Dronova for the assistance with 2014 field surveys. Finally, we thank two anonymous reviewers for their time and useful comments.

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  1. Department of Landscape Architecture & Environmental Planning, College of Environmental Design, University of California Berkeley, 202 Wurster Hall #2000, California, 94720-2000, USA

    Iryna Dronova & Sophie Taddeo

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  1. Iryna Dronova
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Correspondence to Iryna Dronova.

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Dronova, I., Taddeo, S. Canopy Leaf Area Index in Non-Forested Marshes of the California Delta. Wetlands 36, 705–716 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13157-016-0780-5

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