Research works
Recent lab activities
Ecosystem Functions in Fog
The Chi-Lan Mountain (CLM) site receives an annual fog water deposition of more than 300 mm. The frequent foggy condition strongly reduces the solar radiation, increases the leaf wetness and soil water content. How the dominant species Chamaecyparis obtusa var. formosana survives this harsh environment remains unclear...
Resilience of human-affected ecosystems
Lowland landscapes in eastern Taiwan has been largely modified in its land-use types during the last 150 years. The Da-Nong-Da-Fu afforestation area is one of such landscapes in which the natural forests have been converted to sugarcane crops (1920-2000) and plantation of 30 broad-leaved tree species (2002-today). We are looking into the ecosystem resilience using modelling approach...
First trial of 3-D printing...
We assembled a DIY-set of 3-D printer and tested its functionality recently. The first printed stuff was a level-adjustable base for mounting quantum sensors. This base is composed of three parts, which were designed in Google SketchUp and individually printed. This home-made base works better than the purchased one for mounting quantum sensors in our automated leaf chambers.
January 2018
Chie-Yu Hong
Research assistant
Canopy LAI photography using UAV
January 2018
Canopy structure, especially the leaf area index (LAI), has strong influence on ecosystem processes e.g. photosynthesis and transpiration. A commonly used method to monitor the seasonal pattern of LAI is the hemispherical photography using fisheye lens. We are testing a new approach by mounting a small-size sport camera (Nikon KeyMission 360) atop a 4-axis drone such that the canopy pictures could be taken in a more economic way.
Yun-Ju Huang
Undergraduate
Man-Hsun Hsu
Undergraduate
In the test flights in campus, we flew the drone (DJI Phantom 4 Pro) through plantations in a fixed speed of 1 km/hr. The quality of the pictures was good enough for subsequent analysis. A comparison of the pictures with those taken by Nikon D7200 + Sigma 4.5 mm revealed similar values of calculated LAI.