6
advance our understanding of how to link spectral and other kinds of RS data with
functional traits, species distributions, and the tree of life for biodiversity detection.
The authors detail the approaches and conditions under which efforts to detect plant
biodiversity are likely to succeed, being explicit about the advantages and disadvantages of each. A theme running through many chapters is the challenge of moving
across spatial scales from the leaf level to the canopy, ecosystem, and global scale.
We provide a glossary that allows a common language across disciplines to emerge.
Here we explore the prospects for integrating components from each of these
fields to remotely detect biodiversity and articulate the major challenges in our ability to directly link spectral data of vegetation to species diversity, functional traits,
phylogenetic information, and functional biodiversity at the global scale. RS offers
the potential to fill in data gaps in biodiversity knowledge locally and globally, particularly in remote and difficult-to-access locations, and can help define the larger
spatial and temporal background needed for more focused and effective local or
regional studies. It also may increase the likelihood of capturing temporal variation,
and it allows monitoring of biodiversity at different spatial scales with different
platforms and approaches. In essence, it provides the context within which changing
global biodiversity patterns can be understood. The concept of “optical surrogacy”
(Magurran 2013)—in which the linkage of spectral measurements to associated patterns and processes is used—may be useful in predicting ecosystem processes and
characteristics that themselves are not directly observable (Gamon 2008; Madritch
et al. 2014; Fig. 1.3). In a broad sense, such relationships between various expressions of biodiversity and optical (spectral) diversity provide a fundamental principle
for “why RS works” as a metric of biodiversity and why so many different methods
at different scales can provide useful information.
1.4 The Contents of the Book
The first section of the book presents the potential and basis for direct and indirect
remote detection of biodiversity.
Cavender-Bares et al. (Chap. 2) present an overview of biodiversity itself, including the in-situ methods and metrics for measuring biodiversity, particularly plant
diversity. The chapter provides a layperson’s overview of the elements, methods,
and metrics for detecting and analyzing biodiversity and points to the potential of
spectral data, collected at multiple spatial and biological scales, to enhance the
study of biodiversity. In doing so, it bridges an ecological and evolutionary understanding of the diversity of life, considering both its origins and consequences.
Serbin and Townsend (Chap. 3) describe various approaches for measuring plant
and ecosystem function using spectroscopy, providing both the historical development of past advances and the potential of these approaches looking forward. The
chapter explains why we are able to retrieve functional traits from spectra, which
traits can be retrieved, and where spectra show features important for different
aspects of plant function. It also raises the challenge of scaling plant function from
leaves to canopies and landscapes.
J. Cavender-Bares et al.
advance our understanding of how to link spectral and other kinds of RS data with
functional traits, species distributions, and the tree of life for biodiversity detection.
The authors detail the approaches and conditions under which efforts to detect plant
biodiversity are likely to succeed, being explicit about the advantages and disadvantages of each. A theme running through many chapters is the challenge of moving
across spatial scales from the leaf level to the canopy, ecosystem, and global scale.
We provide a glossary that allows a common language across disciplines to emerge.
Here we explore the prospects for integrating components from each of these
fields to remotely detect biodiversity and articulate the major challenges in our ability to directly link spectral data of vegetation to species diversity, functional traits,
phylogenetic information, and functional biodiversity at the global scale. RS offers
the potential to fill in data gaps in biodiversity knowledge locally and globally, particularly in remote and difficult-to-access locations, and can help define the larger
spatial and temporal background needed for more focused and effective local or
regional studies. It also may increase the likelihood of capturing temporal variation,
and it allows monitoring of biodiversity at different spatial scales with different
platforms and approaches. In essence, it provides the context within which changing
global biodiversity patterns can be understood. The concept of “optical surrogacy”
(Magurran 2013)—in which the linkage of spectral measurements to associated patterns and processes is used—may be useful in predicting ecosystem processes and
characteristics that themselves are not directly observable (Gamon 2008; Madritch
et al. 2014; Fig. 1.3). In a broad sense, such relationships between various expressions of biodiversity and optical (spectral) diversity provide a fundamental principle
for “why RS works” as a metric of biodiversity and why so many different methods
at different scales can provide useful information.
1.4 The Contents of the Book
The first section of the book presents the potential and basis for direct and indirect
remote detection of biodiversity.
Cavender-Bares et al. (Chap. 2) present an overview of biodiversity itself, including the in-situ methods and metrics for measuring biodiversity, particularly plant
diversity. The chapter provides a layperson’s overview of the elements, methods,
and metrics for detecting and analyzing biodiversity and points to the potential of
spectral data, collected at multiple spatial and biological scales, to enhance the
study of biodiversity. In doing so, it bridges an ecological and evolutionary understanding of the diversity of life, considering both its origins and consequences.
Serbin and Townsend (Chap. 3) describe various approaches for measuring plant
and ecosystem function using spectroscopy, providing both the historical development of past advances and the potential of these approaches looking forward. The
chapter explains why we are able to retrieve functional traits from spectra, which
traits can be retrieved, and where spectra show features important for different
aspects of plant function. It also raises the challenge of scaling plant function from
leaves to canopies and landscapes.
J. Cavender-Bares et al.