Abstract

1. Most species experience microclimate temperatures: variable and fine-grained thermal conditions determined by atmospheric conditions interacting with biotic and abiotic components of the earth’s surface. Unfortunately, measuring microclimates at biologically meaningful grain sizes is not easy.
2. We showcase the potential of fibre-optic Distributed Temperature Sensing (DTS) to quantify diurnal variation in microclimatic air temperatures during the growing season along a 135-meter forest edge-to-interior transect at 25-cm horizontal resolution. We benchmark DTS measurements against the microclimate quantified with ultra-fine wire thermocouples and more conventional sensors at 15-meter intervals along the transect.
3. Diurnal measurements from DTS indicate maximal cooling of forest floor temperatures (up to -6°C) in the morning (around 8 AM) and well away from the forest edge. Negative offset values gradually increased during the day reaching zero (0 °C) in the evening (around 21 PM).
4. Synthesis. While both DTS and discrete point sampling with microclimate loggers allows to quantify diurnal cycles of microclimate gradients with unified spatial and temporal patterns, DTS provides accurate temperature measurements at a spatial detail nearly impossible to achieve with discrete point sampling. When applied over transects of several hundreds of meters - up to kilometers – fibre-optic DTS is a cost-efficient alternative offering substantial potential to advancing microclimate research.

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