Canopy temperatures strongly overestimate leaf thermal safety margins of tropical trees

Summary Current estimates of temperature effects on plants mostly rely on air temperature, although it can significantly deviate from leaf temperature ( T leaf ). To address this, some studies have used canopy temperature ( T can ). However, T can fails to capture the fine‐scale variation in T leaf among leaves and species in diverse canopies. We used infrared radiometers to study T leaf and T can and how they deviate from air temperature (Δ T leaf and Δ T can ) in multispecies tropical tree plantations at three sites along an elevation and temperature gradient in Rwanda. Our results showed high T leaf (up to c . 50°C) and Δ T leaf (on average 8–10°C and up to c . 20°C) of sun‐exposed leaves during 10:00 h–15:00 h, being close to or exceeding photosynthetic heat tolerance thresholds. These values greatly exceeded simultaneously measured values of T can and Δ T can , respectively, leading to strongly overestimated leaf thermal safety margins if basing those on T can data. Stomatal conductance and leaf size affected T leaf and T can in line with their expected influences on leaf energy balance. Our findings highlight the importance of leaf traits for leaf thermoregulation and show that monitoring T can is not enough to capture the peak temperatures and heat stress experienced by individual leaves of different species in tropical forest canopies.