scholarly journals Using Hyperspectral Imagery to Characterize Rangeland Vegetation Composition at Process-Relevant Scales

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (22) ◽  
pp. 4603
Author(s):  
Rowan Gaffney ◽  
David J. Augustine ◽  
Sean P. Kearney ◽  
Lauren M. Porensky
Keyword(s):  
Plant Community ◽  
Plant Communities ◽  
Vegetation Change ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Hyperspectral Data ◽  
Rangeland Management ◽  
Herbaceous Plant ◽  
Complex Data ◽  
Vegetation Composition ◽  
Management Regime

Rangelands are composed of patchy, highly dynamic herbaceous plant communities that are difficult to quantify across broad spatial extents at resolutions relevant to their characteristic spatial scales. Furthermore, differentiation of these plant communities using remotely sensed observations is complicated by their similar spectral absorption profiles. To better quantify the impacts of land management and weather variability on rangeland vegetation change, we analyzed high resolution hyperspectral data produced by the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) at a 6500-ha experimental station (Central Plains Experimental Range) to map vegetation composition and change over a 5-year timescale. The spatial resolution (1 m) of the data was able to resolve the plant community type at a suitable scale and the information-rich spectral resolution (426 bands) was able to differentiate closely related plant community classes. The resulting plant community class map showed strong accuracy results from both formal quantitative measurements (F1 75% and Kappa 0.83) and informal qualitative assessments. Over a 5-year period, we found that plant community composition was impacted more strongly by weather than by the rangeland management regime. Our work displays the potential to map plant community classes across extensive areas of herbaceous vegetation and use resultant maps to inform rangeland ecology and management. Critical to the success of the research was the development of computational methods that allowed us to implement efficient and flexible analyses on the large and complex data.

scholarly journals Exploring Life Forms for Linking Orthopteran Assemblage and Grassland Plant Community

Hacquetia ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rocco Labadessa ◽  
Luigi Forte ◽  
Paola Mairota
Keyword(s):  
Plant Community ◽  
Plant Communities ◽  
Vegetation Change ◽  
Relative Proportion ◽  
Life Forms ◽  
Herbaceous Plant ◽  
Community Patterns ◽  
Plant Life Forms ◽  
Grassland Conservation ◽  
Biodiversity Changes

AbstractOrthopterans are well known to represent the majority of insect biomass in many grassland ecosystems. However, the verification of a relationship between the traditional descriptors of orthopteran assemblage structure and plant community patterns is not straightforward. We explore the usefulness of the concept of life forms to provide insights on such ecosystem level relationship. For this purpose, thirty sample sites in semi-natural calcareous grasslands were classified according to the relative proportion of dominant herbaceous plant life forms. Orthopteran species were grouped in four categories, based on the Bei-Bienko’s life form categorization. The association among plant communities, orthopteran assemblages and environmental factors was tested by means of canonical correspondence analysis. Orthoptera groups were found to be associated with distinct plant communities, also indicating the effect of vegetation change on orthopteran assemblages. In particular, geobionta species were associated with all the most disturbed plant communities, while chortobionta and thamnobionta seemed to be dependent on better preserved grassland types. Therefore, the use of life forms could help informing on the relationships of orthopteran assemblages with grassland conservation state. Information on such community relationships at the local scale could also assist managers in the interpretation of habitat change maps in terms of biodiversity changes.

Study on Construction of Close-to-Nature Man-Made Plant Landscape Based on Natural Plant Communities: the Case of West Lake Scenic Area in Hangzhou

2012 ◽  
Vol 468-471 ◽  
pp. 2764-2770
Author(s):  
Shan Lu ◽  
Bo Chen ◽  
Shao Qing Hu ◽  
Jing Jing Zhang ◽  
Jun Hao Jiang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Community Structure ◽  
Plant Community ◽  
Plant Communities ◽  
Vegetation Composition ◽  
Natural Community ◽  
Community Based ◽  
Natural Plant ◽  
West Lake ◽  
Construction Methods ◽  
Landscape Plant

Urban close-to-nature plant community is a sustainable design and construction philosophy of landscape greenbelt planning. However, there is no explicit guide for constructing close-to-nature plant community Based on the analysis of community structure and characteristics of 10 typical natural plant communities in the West Lake Scenic Area in Hangzhou and summary of the features of natural community, as well as the analysis of plant landscape of Hangzhou Huagangguanyu Park to prove that the close-to-nature man-made plant community and natural plant community are interrelated in respect of vegetation composition and community structure, this paper puts forward to the essential construction methods of the close-to-nature landscape community, providing theoretical basis for research and construction of urban close-to-nature landscape plant community in China.

Patterns of species density and productivity at different spatial scales in herbaceous plant communities

Oikos ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 89 (3) ◽  
pp. 417-427 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katherine L. Gross ◽  
Michael R. Willig ◽  
Laura Gough ◽  
Richard Inouye ◽  
Stephen B. Cox
Keyword(s):  
Plant Communities ◽  
Spatial Scales ◽  
Species Density ◽  
Herbaceous Plant

Do small headwater streams have a riparian zone defined by plant communities?

2006 ◽  
Vol 36 (9) ◽  
pp. 2131-2140 ◽  
Author(s):  
John M Hagan ◽  
Sacha Pealer ◽  
Andrew A Whitman
Keyword(s):  
Species Richness ◽  
Plant Community ◽  
Plant Communities ◽  
Riparian Zone ◽  
Headwater Streams ◽  
Vascular Plant ◽  
Herbaceous Plants ◽  
Riparian Zones ◽  
Herbaceous Plant ◽  
Stream Bank

Defining riparian zones is important because sustainable forestry programs typically include a requirement to protect riparian zones. To help determine whether small first-order headwater streams have a riparian zone, we surveyed vascular plant communities along 15 streams in a managed forest landscape in western Maine, USA. Along each stream we recorded all vascular plant species in 5 m × 50 m quadrats at different lateral distances from the stream bank: 0–5, 13–18, 25–30, and 40–45 m. Trees and shrubs showed no statistical differences among zones in either species richness or community composition. Species richness of herbaceous plants was greater in the 0-5 m zone adjacent to the stream bank than in other zones, and species composition of herbaceous plants was statistically different in the 0–5 m zone relative to more distant zones. Twenty-four herbaceous species (of 129) were determined to be indicators of the riparian plant community. Twenty-three of the 24 indicator species were more likely to occur near the stream, and 1 species was more likely to be found away from the stream (a negative riparian indicator). These results show that a narrow riparian zone exists on small headwater streams that is reflected by the herbaceous plant community.

A Theoretical Framework for Developing Successional Weed Management Strategies on Rangeland

1996 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 766-773 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roger L. Sheley ◽  
Tony J. Svejcar ◽  
Bruce D. Maxwell
Keyword(s):  
Plant Communities ◽  
Weed Management ◽  
Vegetation Change ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Rangeland Management ◽  
Management Model ◽  
Management Systems ◽  
Natural Processes ◽  
Differential Species ◽  
Species Performance

Sustainable rangeland management will require successional strategies to deal with the expanding weed problem. These strategies must be consistent with the view that plant communities are dynamic and technology is used to enhance the natural processes and mechanisms that direct vegetation change. The goal is to shift the dynamics toward a desired plant community. A unified conceptual model is necessary to direct the development and application of successional weed management systems. We propose using a resource management model as a conceptual basis for successional weed management. This model is based on the primary causes of succession: site availability, differential species availability, and differential species performance. This model provides the mechanistic framework necessary for developing successional weed management systems and it is meant to enhance communication among rangeland weed managers and scientists.

scholarly journals Short-term plant-community responses to large mammalian herbivore exclusion in a rewilded Javan savanna

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (7) ◽  
pp. e0255056
Author(s):  
Arjun B. Potter ◽  
Muhammad Ali Imron ◽  
Satyawan Pudyatmoko ◽  
Matthew C. Hutchinson
Keyword(s):  
Plant Species ◽  
Plant Community ◽  
Plant Communities ◽  
Growing Season ◽  
Developmental Trajectory ◽  
Imperata Cylindrica ◽  
Herbaceous Plant ◽  
Short Term ◽  
Mammalian Herbivores ◽  
Herbivore Exclusion

Grassy biomes such as savannas are maintained by an interacting suite of ecosystem processes from herbivory to rainfall to fire. Many studies have examined the impacts of large mammalian herbivores on herbaceous plant communities, but few of these studies have been conducted in humid, fertile savannas. We present the findings of a short-term experiment that investigated the effects of herbivory in a fertile, humid, and semi-managed savanna. We erected large-herbivore exclosures in Alas Purwo National Park, Java, Indonesia where rainfall is high and fire is suppressed to test how herbivores impact plant community development across the growing season. Where large mammalian herbivores were excluded, herbaceous plant communities contained more non-grasses and were less similar; diverging in their composition as the growing season progressed. Effects of herbivore exclusion on plant species richness, evenness, and biomass per quadrat were generally weak. Notably, however, two weedy plant species (one native, Imperata cylindrica and one introduced, Senna cf. tora) appeared to benefit most from herbivore release. Our results suggest that heavy grazing pressure by native large mammalian herbivores controlled the composition of the herbaceous plant community. Moreover, exclusion of large mammalian herbivores led to divergence in the plant species composition of exclosures; compositional dissimilarity between herbivore-exclusion plots was higher than between plots exposed to large mammalian herbivores. Our findings suggest that, at this high-rainfall site, large mammalian herbivores constrained the developmental trajectory of plant communities across the growing season.

scholarly journals Global change effects on plant communities are magnified by time and the number of global change factors imposed

2019 ◽  
Vol 116 (36) ◽  
pp. 17867-17873 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kimberly J. Komatsu ◽  
Meghan L. Avolio ◽  
Nathan P. Lemoine ◽  
Forest Isbell ◽  
Emily Grman ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Community Structure ◽  
Global Change ◽  
Community Composition ◽  
Plant Community ◽  
Plant Communities ◽  
Human Activities ◽  
Global Changes ◽  
Herbaceous Plant ◽  
Community Responses ◽  
Similar Frequency

Global change drivers (GCDs) are expected to alter community structure and consequently, the services that ecosystems provide. Yet, few experimental investigations have examined effects of GCDs on plant community structure across multiple ecosystem types, and those that do exist present conflicting patterns. In an unprecedented global synthesis of over 100 experiments that manipulated factors linked to GCDs, we show that herbaceous plant community responses depend on experimental manipulation length and number of factors manipulated. We found that plant communities are fairly resistant to experimentally manipulated GCDs in the short term (<10 y). In contrast, long-term (≥10 y) experiments show increasing community divergence of treatments from control conditions. Surprisingly, these community responses occurred with similar frequency across the GCD types manipulated in our database. However, community responses were more common when 3 or more GCDs were simultaneously manipulated, suggesting the emergence of additive or synergistic effects of multiple drivers, particularly over long time periods. In half of the cases, GCD manipulations caused a difference in community composition without a corresponding species richness difference, indicating that species reordering or replacement is an important mechanism of community responses to GCDs and should be given greater consideration when examining consequences of GCDs for the biodiversity–ecosystem function relationship. Human activities are currently driving unparalleled global changes worldwide. Our analyses provide the most comprehensive evidence to date that these human activities may have widespread impacts on plant community composition globally, which will increase in frequency over time and be greater in areas where communities face multiple GCDs simultaneously.

scholarly journals Digital Examination of Vegetation Changes in River Floodplain Wetlands Based on Remote Sensing Images: A Case Study Based on the Downstream Section of Hailar River

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 1206
Author(s):  
Xi Dong ◽  
Zhibo Chen
Keyword(s):  
Remote Sensing ◽  
Water Supply ◽  
Plant Community ◽  
Vegetation Change ◽  
Vegetation Index ◽  
Forest Vegetation ◽  
High Rate ◽  
Vegetation Changes ◽  
Herbaceous Plant ◽  
Sparse Vegetation

The Hailar River is an important river in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China. It plays an extremely important role in maintaining the ecological balance of the region. However, in recent decades, the Hailar River and its surrounding areas have been developed at a high rate and its wetland resources have faced various threats. In this study, vegetation changes in the Hailar River wetlands were analyzed using remote sensing data from the Landsat TM (1987, 2001, and 2010) and Landsat OLI-TIRS (2019) satellites. A vegetation change model was developed using Matlab software to assess vegetation changes in the area. There were significant changes in the wetland vegetation of the lower Hailar River study site between 1987 and 2019. There was an increase in open sand habitat with a sparse vegetation area of 1.08 km2, a decrease in grassland area of 13.17 km2, and an increase in the forest area of 15.91 km2. The spatial distribution of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) varied across the study site and was high overall. The vegetation types varied with distance from the river. There are two possible explanations for positive and negative vegetation change trends. In areas where the water supply is sufficient and relatively stable, the cover of forest vegetation was gradually increasing and the herbaceous plant community is gradually evolving into a scrub woodland plant community. In areas where the water supply is lacking, there are changes in the sense of a decrease of forest vegetation and an increase of open sand habitat with sparse vegetation. Therefore, this study suggests that the existing wetlands should be protected, used wisely, and developed rationally to provide sustainable resources for the next generation.

Temporal dynamics of mycorrhizal fungal communities and co-associations with grassland plant communities following experimental manipulation of rainfall

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Coline Deveautour ◽  
Sally Power ◽  
Kirk Barnett ◽  
Raul Ochoa-Hueso ◽  
Suzanne Donn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Community Composition ◽  
Plant Community ◽  
Plant Communities ◽  
Fungal Community ◽  
Mycorrhizal Fungi ◽  
Temporal Dynamics ◽  
Arbuscular Mycorrhizal ◽  
Fungal Communities ◽  
Plant Responses ◽  
Rainfall Regimes

Climate models project overall a reduction in rainfall amounts and shifts in the timing of rainfall events in mid-latitudes and sub-tropical dry regions, which threatens the productivity and diversity of grasslands. Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi may help plants to cope with expected changes but may also be impacted by changing rainfall, either via the direct effects of low soil moisture on survival and function or indirectly via changes in the plant community. In an Australian mesic grassland (former pasture) system, we characterised plant and arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal communities every six months for nearly four years to two altered rainfall regimes: i) ambient, ii) rainfall reduced by 50% relative to ambient over the entire year and iii) total summer rainfall exclusion. Using Illumina sequencing, we assessed the response of AM fungal communities sampled from contrasting rainfall treatments and evaluated whether variation in AM fungal communities was associated with variation in plant community richness and composition. We found that rainfall reduction influenced the fungal communities, with the nature of the response depending on the type of manipulation, but that consistent results were only observed after more than two years of rainfall manipulation. We observed significant co-associations between plant and AM fungal communities on multiple dates. Predictive co-correspondence analyses indicated more support for the hypothesis that fungal community composition influenced plant community composition than vice versa. However, we found no evidence that altered rainfall regimes were leading to distinct co-associations between plants and AM fungi. Overall, our results provide evidence that grassland plant communities are intricately tied to variation in AM fungal communities. However, in this system, plant responses to climate change may not be directly related to impacts of altered rainfall regimes on AM fungal communities. Our study shows that AM fungal communities respond to changes in rainfall but that this effect was not immediate. The AM fungal community may influence the composition of the plant community. However, our results suggest that plant responses to altered rainfall regimes at our site may not be resulting via changes in the AM fungal communities.

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