Are leaf chemistry signatures preserved at the canopy level?

Imaging spectrometers have the potential to be very useful in remote sensing of canopy chemistry constituents such as nitrogen and lignin. In this study under the HIRIS project the question of how leaf chemical composition which is reflected in leaf spectral features in the reflectance and transmittance is affected by canopy architecture was investigated. Several plants were modeled with high fidelity and a radiosity model was used to compute the canopy spectral signature over the visible and near infrared. The authors found that chemical constituent specific signatures such as absorptions are preserved and in the case of low absorption are actually enhanced. For moderately dense canopies the amount of a constituent depends also on the total leaf area.