Abstract
The Brazilian Atlantic Forest is a global biodiversity hotspot and has been extensively mapped using satellite remote sensing. However, past mapping focused on overall forest cover without consideration of keystone plant resources such as Araucaria angustifolia. A. angustifolia is a critically endangered coniferous tree that is essential for supporting overall biodiversity in the Atlantic Forest. A. angustifolia’s distribution has declined dramatically because of overexploitation and land-use changes. Accurate detection and rapid assessments of the distribution and abundance of this species are urgently needed. We compared two approaches for mapping Araucaria angustifolia across two scales (stand vs. individual tree) at three study sites in Brazil. The first approach used Worldview-2 images and Random Forest in Google Earth Engine to detect A. angustifolia at the stand level, with an accuracy of >90% across all three study sites. The second approach relied on object identification using UAV-LiDAR and successfully mapped individual trees (producer’s/user’s accuracy = 94%/64%) at one study site. Both approaches can be employed in tandem to map remaining stands and to determine the exact location of A. angustifolia trees. Each approach has its own strengths and weaknesses, and we discuss their adoptability by managers to inform conservation of A. angustifolia.
Highlights
Global changes resulting from human activities are widespread and have been resulting in dramatic declines in global biodiversity [1,2,3,4]
For all the study sites, we evaluated the classification of A. angustifolia canopies vs
We explored the utility of two remote sensing technologies for detecting and mapping endangered A. angustifolia forest stands, delineating individual tree crowns and estimating
Summary
Global changes resulting from human activities (e.g., urban development, agricultural conversion) are widespread and have been resulting in dramatic declines in global biodiversity [1,2,3,4]. Some of the biologically important tree species, such as the Parana pine (Araucaria angustifolia), may be more severely affected by these forest declines than previously thought [6,9]. A. angustifolia is a keystone plant resource in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest because of its importance for increasing structural complexity, phylogenetic diversity and biodiversity as well as for supporting complex food webs [10,11,12]. This large and unique conifer species is characterized by a candelabra-shaped crown and is considered highly valuable. Its seeds and wood represent important economic resources for people in southern Brazil [11,13]
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