Double down on remote sensing for biodiversity estimation: a biological mindset

Rocchini, Duccio and Torresani, Michele and Beierkuhnlein, Carl and Feoli, Enrico and Foody, Giles M. and Lenoir, Jonathan and Malavasi, Marco and Moudrý, Vítězslav and Šímová, Petra and Ricotta, Carlo (2022) Double down on remote sensing for biodiversity estimation: a biological mindset. COMMUNITY ECOLOGY, 23 (3). pp. 267-276. ISSN 1585-8553 (print); 1588-2756 (online)

Preview

Text s42974-022-00113-7.pdf Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

In the light of unprecedented planetary changes in biodiversity, real-time and accurate ecosystem and biodiversity assess- ments are becoming increasingly essential for informing policy and sustainable development. Biodiversity monitoring is a challenge, especially for large areas such as entire continents. Nowadays, spaceborne and airborne sensors provide informa- tion that incorporate wavelengths that cannot be seen nor imagined with the human eye. This is also now accomplished at unprecedented spatial resolutions, defined by the pixel size of images, achieving less than a meter for some satellite images and just millimeters for airborne imagery. Thanks to different modeling techniques, it is now possible to study functional diversity changes over different spatial and temporal scales. At the heart of this unifying framework are the “spectral spe- cies”—sets of pixels with a similar spectral signal—and their variability over space. The aim of this paper is to summarize the power of remote sensing for directly estimating plant species diversity, particularly focusing on the spectral species concept.

Actions (login required)

Edit Item