View article

We thank Garen et al.(1) for their comment and agree that there are many issues related to plant thermoregulation that require further study. We do not dispute that our thermal imaging (2) primarily measured the temperature of upper-canopy leaves (Tcan) at our sites, and we support additional vertical leaf temperature (Tleaf) studies in various forest types to better understand the microclimate and metabolism of shade leaves. However, our imaging in combination with ecosystem-scale CO2, H2O, and energy flux observations support our rejection of limited homeothermy in forest canopies. Importantly, we did not assert that canopy-scale thermoregulation is not happening, just that there is no evidence for it leading to canopy temperature cooling below Tair as would be expected by homeothermy. Part of the discrepancy is perhaps related to thermoregulation terminology, in particular the unfortunate application of …