Currently I would like to investigate whether the measured weather data (rain fall, humidity, sun radiotion,..) correlate with the measured plant height. Plant height was measured three times a week, whereas weather was recorded each day. I hypothesize that weather data are not directly reflected in plant biomass and that effects in plant parameters are delayed (shift) . Do you have any idea how to analyse that in R ? I already tried to plot weather and plant parameters and shifted one of the curves to latter time points and see whether I can detect a potential correlation (or the number of days of the delay in reponse).
Best,
Isabelle
A few days after a heavy rainfall, the plants grow taller (in my garden anyway). Therefore, rain affects the rate of growth. Humidity goes with rainfall generally.
However, our area has gone from dry with about 30% humidity (based on records from the 1980's) to the last 3-4 years when average humidity has gone to about 70%. Therefore, humidity has a complicated history.
If you plot water intake with height of plants, this will give you an interesting relationship.
The studies described in this question should consider the soil system in order to properly account for the memory effects. A nice general summary of this problem is described in the following site:
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/global-maps/TRMM_3B43M/MOD_NDVI_M
The second important element is the rainfall interception by a vegetation that depends on the geometrical shapes of plants under consideration, for details please kindly consult
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/eco.2349?af=R
Dear Isabelle,
congratulations on a very interesting and pertinent project! The relationships between plant growth and atmospheric dynamics are highly complex and far from trivial. Advanced multivariate analyses would be needed to carefully tease apart different correlations and hence potential causal connections. Just a few comments here: Is plant height your only indicator for biomass? Perhaps others could be used in addition, e.g. leaf sizes, horizontal growth rates, ground area occupied etc.... Which meteorological parameters precisely did you record and with which temporal resolution? There is substantial atmospheric ("weather") variation within any 24 h period, so it would be interesting to know whether you have, for instance, 3 or 4 distinct data points each day or continuous (= 24 h) meteorological data logging?
All the best & keep us posted - very interesting project :-)
Best,
Julius
Dear Julius, I have several indicators for plant biomass (e.g. Fresh weight and dry weight). However, this was only measured at the end on the experiment. The weater data include rain fall, humidity (air and soil), temperature, sun radiation, air pressure (..). They were recorded continously 24 h. Each 5 minutes a value was recorded. I have six replicates per plant. I thought about a correlation analysis (e.g. Spearman) and correlate each plant value at each recorded day with the measured weather parameters to see, at which date the correlation is highest. But then I would correlate 6 plant height to 1 e.g. sun radiation value (average over the day) and that does not make many sense in my view. Thanks for your reply. Isabelle
Dear Isabelle,
in order to make things easier and to gain a synoptic view, why don't you just create a SINGLE (i.e., cumulative/combined/averaged) curve for ALL six test plants combined --> then do the same for each other biomass indicator you have. So you would end up with perhaps 5 or six 6 curves on the meteorological side (= represebting the meteorological parameters your recorded) and perhaps 4/5 or so biomass indicators. Then you would only have to run an automated correlation analysis, thereby correlating meteo with bio indicators and just check where correlation coefficients are the highest (you could also do this first without considering time lags and look at the temporal analysis later). Just my two cents worth... (If you have already created some curves, I'd be happy to take a look [[email protected]]).
Best wishes from Berlin,
Julius
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Geoscience
- Atmospheric Sciences
- Climate Science
- Climate Change