3.1 Patterns of microclimate and microhabitat structure
We found high horizontal and vertical variation in microclimate (air
temperature: R2 = 0.91,F 7, 78 = 106.90, P < 0.001;
relative humidity: R2 = 0.89,F 7, 77 = 90.17, P < 0.001) and
microhabitat structure in our study site (Fig. 3). For every 10 m moved
away from the forest floor, temperature increased by 0.13˚C and relative
humidity decreased by 1.4% (Fig. 3; Table S2). In addition, there was
variation between horizontal locations in temperature (0.36 ˚C per 10 m)
and humidity (1.4% per 10 m) (Table S2). Photosynthetic photon flux
density (PPFD) increased with vertical height (as PPFD was normalized
within each vertical transect, we could not compare this across
transects, note that PPFD data was missing for Transect 7;R2 = 0.39, F 1, 68 =
43.34, P < 0.001; Table S2, Fig. 3). The total leaf
area generally decreased towards the upper canopy but did not show
significant horizontal variation (note that leaf area data was missing
for Transect 7; R2 = 0.24,F 6, 67 = 3.53, P = 0.004; Table S2, Fig.
3).