Fractional cover estimates from LANDIS-II

[Tucker Furniss]

Hi folks,

I need to estimate percent canopy cover (CC) from my LANDIS-II simulations. I can think of two ways to do this, either by modeling CC as a function of age and biomass or by modeling CC as a function of LAI. I have CC, age, and biomass at Time 0, but not LAI. The problem with using age and biomass is that the relationship between field-derived CC, age, and biomass is very weak. The problem with using LAI is that I don't have Time 0 data to calibrate a CC~LAI model, and I can't seem to find any published models that I could use. 

Does anyone have any suggestions for getting percent canopy cover out of LANDIS-II, or reliable approaches to estimate CC from LANDIS-II outputs? I'm open to any and all ideas.

Thanks!

Tucker