Abstract
Global change experiments are often spatially and temporally limited because they are time‐ and labor‐intensive, and expensive to carry out. We describe how the incorporation of remote‐sensing techniques into global change experiments can complement traditional methods and provide additional information about system processes. We describe five emerging near‐surface remote‐sensing techniques: spectroscopy, thermal and fluorescence imaging, terrestrial laser scanning, digital repeat photography, and unmanned aerial systems. The addition of such techniques can reduce cost and effort, provide novel information, and expand existing observations by improving their context, accuracy, and completeness. In addition, we contend that use of airborne and satellite remote‐sensing data during site selection can improve the ecological representativeness of future experiments. We conclude by recommending a high level of communication and collaboration between remote‐sensing scientists and ecologists at all stages of global change experimentation.
Highlights
Alexey N Shiklomanov1*, Bethany A Bradley2, Kyla M Dahlin3, Andrew M Fox4, Christopher M Gough5, Forrest M Hoffman6, Elizabeth M Middleton7, Shawn P Serbin8, Luke Smallman9, and William K Smith4
Cunliffe et al (b) (2016) generated canopy height maps of tundra tussock vegetation at sub-c entimeter resolutions over a 10-ha area; on the basis of those maps, they predicted biomass and aboveground C stocks. Such imagery can be used to identify species cover types and distributions, as well as to create surface elevation and vegetation canopy height models based on the Structure from Motion (SfM) approach. (c) Thermal image of the landscape shown in (b) with superimposed average chlorophyll content estimated from the dual spectrometer retrievals of surface reflectance (R Meng et al unpublished data)
In a time of unprecedented planetary-scale change, the mechanistic understanding that can be provided only by global change experiments is essential for accurate forecasting and preparation for a future in the Anthropocene
Summary
Conventional approaches to measuring plant traits have several limitations They are typically destructive, which restricts the number of samples that can be collected without affecting a plant’s function and is an obstacle to tracking changes to an individual over the course of an experiment; second, analyses based on these techniques often require a full laboratory setting, which limits their applicability in remote and Figure 1. One application of specthe plot scale, where terrestrial laser scanners paint three- troscopy is to establish empirical relationships between spectra dimensional (3D) images of vegetation structure and allocation, and traits for a sample of leaves, and use spectra to infer digital cameras monitor ecological changes, and unmanned traits across larger scales, including experimental manipulations aerial systems (UASs) provide detailed imagery; we con- or climatic gradients. A single reflectance spectrum can provide inforto “traits” (measurable characteristics of plants that directly mation on ten or more traits (Asner et al 2015), and spectra
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