Diurnal thermal videography of plant communities

Knowledge graph centered on Diurnal thermal videography of plant communities with 70 nodes and 152 connections. Top connected: Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Barbey's Larkspur, Crested Butte, Engelmann Spruce, Potentilla gracilis.

Method synopsis

Continuous infrared thermal imaging of vegetation plots at 5-second intervals from sunrise to sunset using elevated FLIR cameras to capture leaf temperature dynamics across environmental gradients.

Synthesized from method descriptions across 4 papers using this protocol.

Procedure from a recent peer-reviewed implementation

Steps below were extracted from the most recent peer-reviewed implementation of this protocol in the corpus — Low predictability of energy balance traits and leaf temperature metrics in desert, montane and alpine plant communities (2020), Functional Ecology. The protocol was originally introduced by How do Plant Traits Affect Thermoregulation? (2016). Implementations in other papers (listed below) may differ.

1. Deploy thermal imaging system
   Position infrared camera (A615, FLIR, coupled to a 13 mm lens with 45° field of view) above each plot. Camera was oriented with the sensor lens facing down to capture orthographic imagery. Camera was attached to a ball-head camera mount on a wooden beam, suspended at ~2 m height between two aluminum ladders. Camera was placed in a ventilated radiation shield built from reflective Mylar plastic.
   Quantities: 1 camera per plot at 2 m height, 45° field of view, 640 × 480 pixel resolution yielding 3-4 pixels/cm spatial resolutionDuration: Single day deployment per site during summer growing seasonConditions: Before sunrise positioning, sunny to overcast weather within and across days, no significant rain
   Equipment: A615 FLIR infrared camera, 13 mm lens, ball-head camera mount, wooden beam, aluminum ladders, ventilated radiation shield, reflective Mylar plastic, Linux computer (Odroid, C2)
2. Collect thermal imagery time series
   Configure camera for 16-bit radiometric output at 640 × 480 pixel resolution, capturing thermal images at 5-second intervals throughout the day. Data collected from local sunrise to local sunset. Camera was re-aligned to its previous field of view after any incidents requiring system shutdown.
   Quantities: Images captured every 5 seconds from sunrise to sunset, 16-bit radiometric dataDuration: Full daylight period at each siteConditions: Continuous monitoring from local sunrise to local sunset, weather conditions ranged from sunny to overcast

Typical Equipment

• A615 FLIR infrared camera
• 13 mm lens
• ball-head camera mount
• wooden beam
• aluminum ladders
• ventilated radiation shield
• reflective Mylar plastic
• Linux computer (Odroid, C2)
• black duct tape
• Type K thermocouple (Omega, 5SRTC-TT-K-24-36)
• digital thermometer (Omega, HH147U)

Output Measurements

• leaf temperature time series
• thermal offset
• thermal coupling strength

Papers Using This Protocol (4)

Species Studied With This Protocol

Places Where Used