fitLAD function

Fit Leaf Angle Distribution (LAD) from two-parameters (mu, nu) Beta distribution

The function derives both the Leaf Angle Distribution (LAD) and the G-function from two-parameters (mu, nu) Beta distribution.

• The LAD function is fitted through a Beta distribution as recommended by Goel and Strebel (1984).
• The G-function is derived from LAD using the formula provided by Ross (1981) and reported as Equations 2-3 by Chianucci et al. (2018).
• The fitted LAD is also compared with six theoretical LAD distributions provided by de Wit (1965).
• The distribution type is then classified using a leaf inclination index Ross (1975) and reported as Equation 8 by Chianucci et al. (2018).

Arguments

• mu: Numeric. The mu parameter of the Beta distribution.
• nu: Numeric. The nu parameter of the Beta distribution.
• plot: Logical. If set to TRUE, it plots the measured and theoretical LAD and G distributions. Default set to FALSE.

Returns

A list of two elements:

• dataset: a dataframe with three columns indicating the measured LAD (pdf), the G-function (G), for view or inclination angle (theta).
• distribution: a vector containing the matched distribution type.

Examples

fitLAD(0.9,0.9) # uniform LAD distribution
fitLAD(2.8,1.18)# planophile LAD distribution
fitLAD(1.1,1.7, plot=TRUE)# spherical LAD distribution