The relationship between species and spectral diversity in grassland communities is mediated by their vertical complexity

作者：Luisa Conti, Marco Malavasi, Thomas Galland, Jan Komárek, Ondřej Lagner, Carlos P. Carmona, Francesco de Bello, Duccio Rocchini, Petra Šímová · 发表于：Applied Vegetation Science · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.1111/avsc.12600 · 被引用次数：58 · 研究领域：Remote Sensing in Agriculture、Land Use and Ecosystem Services、Species Distribution and Climate Change

Abstract Aims The link between spectral diversity and in‐situ plant biodiversity is one promising approach to using remote sensing for biodiversity assessment. Nevertheless, there is little evidence as to whether this link is maintained at fine scales, as well as to how it is influenced by vegetation's vertical complexity. Here we test, at the community level in grasslands, the link between diversity of the spectral signal ( S Div ) and taxonomic diversity ( T Div ), and the influence of vertical complexity. Methods We used 196 1.5 m × 1.5 m experimental communities with different biodiversity levels. To measure vertical complexity, we quantified height diversity ( H Div ) of the most abundant species in the community. T Div was calculated using the Shannon index based on species cover. Canopy spectral information was gathered using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) mounted with a multi‐spectral sensor providing spectral information via six 10‐nm bands covering the visible and near‐infrared region at a spatial resolution of 3 cm. We measured S Div in a core area of 1 m ×1 m within the communities as mean Euclidean distance of all pixels in a feature space spanned between the two first components of a PCA calculated for the complete raster stack. We modelled S Div through mixed‐effect linear models, using T Div , H Div , and their interaction as fixed‐effect predictors. Results Contrary to our expectations, T Div was negatively linked to S Div . The diversity in plant height wa...