Optical, non-contact laser scanning provides high resolution spatial information in three dimensions. The animation shows a scan of Pleurozium schreberi. Such scans provide quantitative information on canopy properties that can be integrated into water and carbon exchange models as well as interface with other optical sensors that can provide information about physiologically relevant parameters within the canopy, like temperature or quantum yield (see Rice et al. 2011. The Bryologist 114: 367-378; Rice et al. 2014. Chapter 10 in Hanson and Rice, Photosynthesis in Bryophytes and Early Land Plants. Springer, Dordrecht).
