Leaf Thermoregulation Traits of Montane Tree Species in Rwanda Common Gardens, 2025

Leaf-level functional traits collected at a tropical elevational gradient in the Albertine Rift in Rwanda at two experimental sites across two common garden plantations with contrasting mean annual temperatures (15.2°C and 20.0°C). The dataset includes leaf structural traits, optical properties, and angle measurements for eight native tropical Afromontane and transitional rainforest species. Measurement campaigns were conducted between January and February 2025.

Use Cases

• Modeling plant thermoregulation strategies based on leaf structural traits like area, thickness, and LMA.
• Analyzing climate adaptation across elevations based on data from contrasting temperature sites.
• Studying ecosystem responses to environmental stress based on leaf optical properties (reflectance, transmittance, absorptance).
• Investigating leaf orientation and energy balance based on leaf angle measurements (pitch, roll, azimuth, vertical angle).

Strengths

• Data collected from two common garden plantations with precisely measured contrasting mean annual temperatures (15.2°C and 20.0°C).
• Includes a range of leaf traits: structural, optical, and angle measurements.
• Sampling covers eight native tropical Afromontane and transitional rainforest species.
• Measurement campaigns were conducted within a specific timeframe (January-February 2025).

Limitations

• Column-level documentation is absent; field semantics must be inferred after download.
• Row count is unknown, which may limit suitability assessment.
• Data may reflect geographic bias inherent to uk_data.

Provenance

Source

Environmental Information Data Centre

Collection Method

Leaf-level trait measurements collected at experimental common garden sites.

Time Range

January-February 2025

Freshness

Last updated 2026-06-18 17:07:45.997803; freshness should be verified.

Geography

Albertine Rift in Rwanda