Ecosystem structure along bioclimatic gradients in Hawai'i from imaging spectroscopy [An article from: Remote Sensing of Environment]

This digital document is a journal article from Remote Sensing of Environment, published by Elsevier in 2005. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
The Hawaiian Islands contain more than two-thirds of the life zones delineated by Holdridge, L.R., 1947. Determination of world plant formations from simple climate data. Science, 105, 367-368, and is thus an ideal testing ground for remote sensing studies of ecosystem function and structure. We tested the generality of imaging spectroscopy with ''tied'' red-edge and shortwave-infrared (RE-SWIR2) spectral mixture modeling for automated analysis of the lateral distribution of plant tissues and bare substrate across diverse bioclimatic gradients in Hawai'i. Unique quantities of the fractional cover of photosynthetic and non-photosynthetic vegetation (PV, NPV) and bare substrate identified fundamental differences in ecosystem structure across life zones. There was a ~20-fold increase in fractional PV cover with a 10-fold increase in mean annual precipitation (@?250-2000 mm year^-^1). This rate of increase diminished from 2000 to 3000 mm year^-^1 of rainfall, suggesting that photosynthetic canopy cover may be limited by water saturation at 3000 mm year^-^1. The amount of exposed surface senescent material (NPV) remained nearly constant at ~50% in ecosystems with a mean annual precipitation