Remote Sensing of Plant Biodiversity

Dr. Jeannine Cavender-Bares is a Professor in the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behavior at the University of Minnesota. She earned a Masters at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, and a PhD in Biology at Harvard University. Her research focuses on the ecology and evolution of plant function, applying phylogenetics and spectral data to community ecology, and remote sensing of biodiversity. She is committed to advancing international efforts for global monitoring and assessment of biodiversity and ecosystem services to aid management efforts towards sustainability.Dr. John Gamon is a Professor in the Departments of Earth & Atmospheric Sciences and Biological Sciences at the University of Alberta. He also conducts research in Quantitative Remote Sensing at the Center for Advanced Land Management Information Technologies (CALMIT) in the School of Natural Resources at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. He earned his Masters and his PhD in Botany at the University of California, Davis, and did his Post-Doctoral Research on Remote Sensing and Ecophysiology at the Carnegie institution in Stanford, CA. His research focus include photosynthesis, ecosystem function, productivity, biodiversity, ecoinformatics and sustainability. Dr. Philip Townsend is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He earned his PhD in Geography at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. His research focuses include physiological remote sensing, imaging spectroscopy, ecosystem ecology, and watershed hydrology.

• Chapter1. The use of remote sensing to enhance biodiversity monitoring & detection—a critical challenge for the 21st century. - Chapter2. Applying Remote Sensing to Biodiversity Science.- Chapter3. Scaling Functional Traits from Leaves to Canopies.- Chapter4. The Laegeren Site: An Augmented Forest Laboratory.- Chapter5. Lessons Learned from Spectranomics: Wet Tropical Forests.- Chapter6. Remote Sensing for Early, Detailed, and Accurate Detection of Forest Disturbance and Decline for Protection of Biodiversity.- Chapter7. Linking Leaf Spectra to the Plant Tree of Life.- Chapter8. Linking Foliar Traits to Belowground Processes.- Chapter9. Linking Foliar Traits to Belowground Processes.- Chapter9. Using Remote Sensing for Modeling and Monitoring Species Distributions.- Chapter10. Remote Sensing of Geodiversity as a Link to Biodiversity.- Chapter11. Predicting Patterns of Plant Diversity and Endemism in the Tropics Using Remote Sensing Data: A Study Case From the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.- Chapter12. Remote Detection of Invasive Alien Species.- Chapter13. A Range of Earth Observation Techniques for Assessing Plant Diversity.- Chapter14. How the Optical Properties of Leaves Modify the Absorption and Scattering of Energy and Enhance Leaf Functionality.- Chapter15. Spectral Field Campaigns: Planning and Data Collection.- Chapter16. Consideration of Scale in Remote Sensing of Biodiversity.- Chapter17. Integrating Biodiversity, Remote Sensing, and Auxiliary Information for the Study of Ecosystem Functioning and Conservation at Large Spatial Scales.- Chapter18. Essential Biodiversity Variables: Integrating in Situ Observations and Remote Sensing Through Modeling.- Chapter19. Prospects and pitfalls for spectroscopic remote sensing of biodiversity at the global scale.- Chapter20. Epilogue – Towards a Global Biodiversity Monitoring System.