CO2=carbon and water vapour exchanges of a Mediterranean macchia canopy

ABSTRACT

rol of terrestrial vegetation on the global carbon cycle is becoming an important subject and a growing need is felt for more precise and detailed measurements of the response of terrestrial ecosystems to the changing environment. Many ecophysiological models developed in order to assess the impact of climatic change on vegetation are based on physiological processes occurring at cellular or leaf level. Scaling up these processes from leaf or individual plant to the canopy level is a complicate and rather difficult matter, requiring accurate and reliable methods of results testing. In this paper an application of the eddy correlation technique to the determination of water vapour and CO2 gaseous exchanges of a #macchia# canopy is presented. Experimental data of the three days of measurements are discussed in terms of energy balance, carbon fluxes and carbon-water flux ratio (CWFR) (AU)