Project Motivation

The ability to collect intact leaf specimens from trees in highly diverse tropical rainforests is important for identifying tree species and understanding their different responses to human impact, as well as to provide biological specimens for research on ecophysiology and foliar nutrients. The latter usually require leaves that are exposed to sunlight, as opposed to in the shade. However, collecting leaves from tropical rainforests is challenging, given that the canopy and emergent trees are about 45 to 70 meters tall – beyond the reach of conventional collection method such as the extension pruner and slingshots. Moreover, tree density in tropical rainforests is high and crowns of trees in these rainforests are often overlapping.