On each aforementioned fresh foliage, aliquot changes in the leaf morphology were characterized by scanning the leaf area (Delta-T area meter MK2) and measuring the needle length.
The portion of the leaf fed upon by the larva was quantified after one day by scanning the leaf.
Leaves were harvested, scanned, and total leaf area of the inoculated region was determined using ImageJ [ 51].
After trapping, sampled leaves were excised at the base of the petiole, scanned, and the leaf area was measured in comparison to a 1 cm standard (SigmaScan 5.0; Systat Software Inc).
Ten fields of view were scanned from each leaf section and were captured with confocal LCS 3D software (Leica, Wetzlar, Germany) and Image J (developed by Wayne Rasband, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD; http://rsb.info.nih.gov/ij).
Like all Australasian robins, the flame robin is a perch and pounce hunter, mainly eating insects, and often returning to a favourite low perch several times to stand erect and motionless, scanning the leaf-litter for more prey.
Leaf size, shape, perimeter, and spininess were estimated and averaged across three leaves collected from each plant (the most recent fully expanded leaf, the leaf directly below the primary capitulum, and the longest rosette leaf) and scanned for analysis with ImageJ v1.43u [ 32]).
For many species, field-portable leaf scanning equipment can be used to measure leaf area and blade dimensions.
Three leaves from one primary branch per plant were scanned on an LI-3100 learearea meter (Licor, Inc., Lincoln, NE USA), oven-dried, and weighed to determine specific leaf area (SLA; cm/g).
Each portion of leaf was scanned and its area measured by using the same digital image processing technique described in the previous section.
