Evaluation of technological applications in the measurement of canopy opening in Araucaria Forest

Canopy opening is an important variable for understanding the regeneration of plant species and the floristic composition of forest environments. Smartphone applications have been created to estimate the openness and coverage of community structures and plant culture. These have the potential to replace conventional equipment such as the Densiometer due to accessibility and zero cost. However, measuring and recommending the use of these technologies to the forest environment is necessary. Thus, the present study aimed to evaluate these low-cost technologies for measuring the canopy opening / covering by comparing with the spherical Densiometer model A. Canopy openings were measured for each method at 55 points performing 4 readings per point on permanent plots in Araucaria Forest fragment. The means of the canopy opening measurements for each method were compared by statistical test. The results obtained were that the CanopyCapture application presented better results, not differing statistically from the Densiometer; CanopyCapture proved to be an intermediate alternative; Canopeo performed worse, with great variation and little precision in the results. It was possible to conclude that, for the proposed study model, only CanopyCapture has the potential to be used as a substitute for the Forest Densiometer, yet different studies are necessary to have greater reliability in the efficiency of this application in other forest formations.