Abstract
Spatial information on forest functional composition is needed to inform management and conservation efforts, yet this information is lacking, particularly in tropical regions. Canopy foliar traits underpin the functional biodiversity of forests, and have been shown to be remotely measurable using airborne 350–2510 nm imaging spectrometers. We used newly acquired imaging spectroscopy data constrained with concurrent light detection and ranging (LiDAR) measurements from the Carnegie Airborne Observatory (CAO), and field measurements, to test the performance of the Spectranomics approach for foliar trait retrieval. The method was previously developed in Neotropical forests, and was tested here in the humid tropical forests of Malaysian Borneo. Multiple foliar chemical traits, as well as leaf mass per area (LMA), were estimated with demonstrable precision and accuracy. The results were similar to those observed for Neotropical forests, suggesting a more general use of the Spectranomics approach for mapping canopy traits in tropical forests. Future mapping studies using this approach can advance scientific investigations and applications based on imaging spectroscopy.
Highlights
Canopy foliar traits—in particular, leaf chemistry—underpin functional biodiversity, which in turn provides important information about ecological processes including biogeochemical cycles, biosphere–atmosphere carbon exchange, evolution, and community assembly [1,2]
Imaging spectroscopy has evolved in step with technological, computing, and modeling advances [6,7], few studies have attempted the retrieval of multiple foliar traits needed to characterize functional diversity
The distributions of foliar traits measured at the 13 locations in Sabah were more similar to those of a foliar trait dataset from 395 crowns in Sarawak, Malaysia [44] than those measured with the same methods in the Neotropics
Summary
Canopy foliar traits—in particular, leaf chemistry—underpin functional biodiversity, which in turn provides important information about ecological processes including biogeochemical cycles, biosphere–atmosphere carbon exchange, evolution, and community assembly [1,2] This information is key to understanding vegetation responses to climate change. Biological diversity is threatened by human activities and a rapidly changing climate, yet we lack critically important information at spatial scales needed for large-scale management and conservation actions. This is true in humid tropical forests where inaccessibility, high species and canopy structural diversity, and expansive landscapes challenge ground-based studies. Despite a surge in field collections, foliar functional trait data remain relatively sparse, with little coverage across the humid tropics [8], and have had limited systematic sampling using consistent protocols [9] needed to develop robust methods for foliar trait retrieval from imaging spectroscopy
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