Assessing Diversity of Prairie Plants Using Remote Sensing

Biodiversity loss endangers ecosystem services and is considered as a global change that may generate unacceptable environmental consequences on the Earth system. Global biodiversity observations are needed to provide a deep understanding of the biodiversity – ecosystem services relationship and conserve the Earth’s biodiversity. Traditionally, in situ biodiversity monitoring is limited in time and space and is usually a costly and time-consuming enterprise. Remote sensing can provide data over a large area in a consistent, objective manner and has been used to detect plant biodiversity in a range of ecosystems based on the varying spectral properties of different species or functional groups. Studies estimating biodiversity using remote sensing can be generally categorized into three types: estimating biodiversity indirectly with habitat mapping; mapping distribution of individuals as a basis for assessing community composition and diversity; and assessing species richness directly from patterns of spectral variation to yield α-diversity. However, key questions remain: 1) can the diversity-productivity relationship be assessed using remote sensing? 2) What drives the variation of optical signal among species or functional groups? and 3) what is the appropriate spectral and spatial scale for biodiversity detection using remote sensing?

Authors: Ran Wang

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