aRchi (version 2.1.3)

ForkRate: Compute the fork rate of a tree

Description

Compute the fork rate from an aRchi object

Usage

ForkRate(aRchi)
# S4 method for aRchi
ForkRate(aRchi)

Value

a vector with two numeric value. The number of Fork and the fork rate.

Arguments

aRchi

a file of class aRchi with at least a QSM and a Path table.

Details

The fork rate is the mean number of forks per meter of tree height. This metric is computed by browsing tree QSM from the base to the top. Each time a ramification point is encountered it is evaluated as a fork if at least one daughter had a radius not less than 75% of the diameter of the largest daughter. This threshold was chosen in order to exclude non-perennial structures, such as traumatic or epicormic shoots, or branches that will not last on the tree. If the ramification point is a fork, all retained daughter branches are browsed through until the next ramification point and further until the path end. If a daughter is rejected, it is removed as well as all the paths passing through it.

References

Martin-Ducup, O. et al. Terrestrial laser scanning reveals convergence of tree architecture with increasingly dominant crown canopy position. Functional Ecology (2020).

See Also

Clean_QSM to clean a QSM based on a threshold of percentage of largest daughter's diameter.

Examples

# Read an aRchi file with a QSM and paths tables.
file=system.file("extdata","Tree_1_aRchi.aRchi",package = "aRchi")
Tree1_aRchi=read_aRchi(file)
# Compute the fork rate of Tree1
ForkRate(Tree1_aRchi)