Measuring Environmental Factors for Orchid Mycorrhizas

We measured precipitation, temperature, and canopy openness as environmental conditions that might affect the dependency of C. goeringii against mycorrhizas. Precipitation and temperature were measured as the macro-environmental factors which might affect all individuals in the site equally, whereas canopy openness was measured as the micro-environmental factors which might affect each individual plant. The precipitation and temperature were measured by the Meteorological equipment of the Ecological Garden. The total precipitation and the average temperature over 10 d before the sampling date, respectively, were utilized (both values included the values on the sampling date). The photos of the canopy above each plant individual were taken by a built-in camera of a smartphone (AQUOS sense lite SH-M05; SHARP, Japan) equipped with a fisheye lens (Daiso, Japan), which were imported to CanopOn 2 (http://takenaka-akio.org/etc/canopon2/) to major canopy openness. To index the maturity of each individual of C. goeringii, the number of pseudobulbs was recorded. Because C. goeringii has a sympodial growth and makes new shoots (pseudobulbs) once a year, the number of the pseudobulbs reflects the plant age after shoot formation.