Shade level did not significantly influence observed top-down effects.
For the naming convention, the part in italics denotes the particular scenario as follows: mon is month of the year (1 to 12, where 1=Jan, 12=Dec), shd is shade level in % (0, 25, 50, 75, 90, 100), sub is substrate (soil, rock, sand).
The microclim datasets (Data Citation 1: Figshare http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.878253) can be used to extract data for specific points or for selected grids, and the user can employ interpolation functions to obtain estimates at finer resolutions of time (i.e., sub-hourly, or daily rather than monthly), shade level and heights above the ground between 1 cm and 120 cm if necessary.
Species of the Miconia Zone appeared to be better pre-adapted to higher shade levels created by the Miconia shrubs.
The estimates are for the middle day of each month, based on long-term average macroclimates, and include six shade levels and three generic substrates (soil, rock and sand) per pixel.
Shade levels were strongly influenced by riparian vegetation condition and channel width (Baillie et al. 2005; Boothroyd et al. 2004; Davies-Colley and Quinn 1998; Thompson et al. 2009).
This study proposes the use of area-averaged sky view factor (SVFa), instead of the traditional single-point sky view factor from fisheye photographs (SVFsp), as the indicator for measuring the shading level at various areas in parks.
Based on previous studies, we found that a very strong shading level, corresponding to a 90% reduction in full natural light (as measured by a Luxmeter, model ZDS-10, China) resulted in a substantial increase in pest and diseases damage.
Therefore, we employed a shading level equivalent to a 67% reduction of full natural light (as measured by a, Luxmeter, model ZDS-10, China) created by one layer of black netting.
Four shading levels (3, 20, 40, and 70% of incident photosynthetically active radiation; PAR) were applied in each period using shade cloths that surrounded one-half of large individual trees.
Each main plot contained three shading levels (0%, 50% and 75%), whereas five exogenous IBA concentrations (0, 1000, 2000, 5000 and 10,000 mg/l) were tested at the subplot level.
