Remote sensing of species dominance and the value for quantifying ecosystem services

Remote sensing (RS) is a powerful tool to measure and monitor Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs) and their environmental drivers. Despite this potential, stronger integration between remote sensing experts and the ecological community could better support biodiversity initiatives. Here we highlight opportunities to harness remote sensing technology to better understand biodiversity patterns, ecological processes and the consequences for ecosystem services (ESs). We argue that tracking many EBVs using remote sensing should prioritize the monitoring of dominant species, a scalable property across multiple EBV classes, for several reasons. First, a few dominant species in an ecological community disproportionately contribute to the satellite spectral signature. Second, a focus on dominance would enable a stronger links to ecological research, as dominance reflects the ecological community context (i.e. relative abundance of coexisting species). For example dominant species should be especially important contributors to many ecosystem functions and services that rely on abundance or biomass, such as carbon storage or nutrient cycling, because of their greater representation in a community. Furthermore, global change impacts on communities may be reflected in changing dominance structure before the losses of species, thus tracking dominance provides an early‐warning sign of community change for EBVs. Finally, focusing on dominant species should improve understanding of spatial and temporal dynamics of dominance‐driven ESs through RS mapping. Given the importance of dominant species to ecological communities and ESs, monitoring dominance under changing environmental conditions and human impacts should be a global priority.

• Publication year

  2016

• Venue

  Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation

• Publication date

  2016-09-01

• Fields of study

  Geography, Environmental Science

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1002/rse2.23
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

• Leaf economics spectrum–productivity relationships in intensively grazed pastures depend on dominant species identity

  2016cited by this paper
• Remotely sensed temperature and precipitation data improve species distribution modelling in the tropics

  2016cited by this paper
• How Should Beta-Diversity Inform Biodiversity Conservation?

  2016cited by this paper
• Monitoring plant functional diversity from space

  2016cited by this paper
• Ecosystem service trade-offs and synergies misunderstood without landscape history

  2016cited by this paper
• Will remote sensing shape the next generation of species distribution models?

  2015cited by this paper
• Abundance of common species, not species richness, drives delivery of a real-world ecosystem service.

  2015cited by this paper
• Delivery of crop pollination services is an insufficient argument for wild pollinator conservation

  2015cited by this paper
• Remote sensing of ecosystem services:a systematic review

  2015cited by this paper
• Environmental science: Agree on biodiversity metrics to track from space

  2015cited by this paper
• Historical dynamics in ecosystem service bundles

  2015influential reference
• Earth observation as a tool for tracking progress towards the Aichi Biodiversity Targets

  2015cited by this paper
• Hyperdominance in Amazonian forest carbon cycling

  2015cited by this paper
• Functional differences between dominant grasses drive divergent responses to large herbivore loss in mesic savanna grasslands of North America and South Africa

  2015cited by this paper
• Changes in the global value of ecosystem services

  2014cited by this paper
• Changing drivers of species dominance during tropical forest succession

  2014cited by this paper
• Earth observation satellite sensors for biodiversity monitoring: potentials and bottlenecks

  2014cited by this paper
• Satellite remote sensing for applied ecologists: opportunities and challenges

  2014cited by this paper
• Remote detection of invasive plants: a review of spectral, textural and phenological approaches

  2014cited by this paper
• Sensing biodiversity

  2014cited by this paper
• Hyperdominance in the Amazonian Tree Flora

  2013cited by this paper
• Poleward expansion of mangroves is a threshold response to decreased frequency of extreme cold events

  2013cited by this paper
• Improving our understanding of environmental controls on the distribution of C3 and C4 grasses

  2013cited by this paper
• Essential Biodiversity Variables

  2013influential reference
• Carbon stocks in primary and secondary tropical forests in Singapore

  2013cited by this paper
• Capacity, pressure, demand, and flow: A conceptual framework for analyzing ecosystem service provision and delivery

  2013cited by this paper
• Methods for mapping ecosystem service supply: a review

  2012cited by this paper
• Dissecting NDVI–species richness relationships in Hawaiian dry forests

  2012cited by this paper
• Using annual time-series of Landsat images to assess the effects of forest restitution in post-socialist Romania

  2012cited by this paper
• Disentangling the effects of geographic distance and environmental dissimilarity on global patterns of species turnover

  2012cited by this paper
• Quantifying and mapping ecosystem services supplies and demands: a review of remote sensing applications.

  2012influential reference
• Benefits of hyperspectral remote sensing for tracking plant invasions

  2011cited by this paper
• Benchmark map of forest carbon stocks in tropical regions across three continents

  2011cited by this paper
• The Protective Role of Coastal Marshes: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

  2011cited by this paper
• Remotely sensed spectral heterogeneity as a proxy of species diversity: Recent advances and open challenges

  2010cited by this paper
• Climate change effects on plant biomass alter dominance patterns and community evenness in an experimental old‐field ecosystem

  2010cited by this paper
• Challenges in integrating the concept of ecosystem services and values in landscape planning, management and decision making

  2010cited by this paper
• Occurrence and dominance of six Pacific Northwest conifer species

  2010cited by this paper
• Estimating the relative abundance of C3 and C4 grasses in the Great Plains from multi-temporal MTCI data: issues of compositing period and spatial generalizability

  2010cited by this paper
• Remote sensing of ecosystem services: An opportunity for spatially explicit assessment

  2010cited by this paper
• Applying species--energy theory to conservation: a case study for North American birds.

  2010cited by this paper
• Does using species abundance data improve estimates of species diversity from remotely sensed spectral heterogeneity

  2010cited by this paper
• A safe operating space for humanity

  2009cited by this paper
• Airborne spectranomics: mapping canopy chemical and taxonomic diversity in tropical forests

  2009cited by this paper
• Modeling multiple ecosystem services, biodiversity conservation, commodity production, and tradeoffs at landscape scales

  2009cited by this paper
• Mapping and Valuing Ecosystem Services as an Approach for Conservation and Natural‐Resource Management

  2009cited by this paper
• Linking variability in species composition and MODIS NDVI based on beta diversity measurements

  2009cited by this paper
• Bringing the Hutchinsonian niche into the 21st century: Ecological and evolutionary perspectives

  2009cited by this paper
• Ecology: Gini in the bottle

  2009cited by this paper
• Measuring Woody Encroachment along a Forest–Savanna Boundary in Central Africa

  2009cited by this paper
• Understanding relationships among multiple ecosystem services.

  2009cited by this paper
• Consequences of dominance: a review of evenness effects on local and regional ecosystem processes.

  2008influential reference
• Agricultural modifications of hydrological flows create ecological surprises.

  2008cited by this paper
• Mountain pine beetle and forest carbon feedback to climate change

  2008cited by this paper
• Global mapping of ecosystem services and conservation priorities

  2008cited by this paper
• Measuring and modelling biodiversity from space

  2008cited by this paper
• Predicting species distributions across the Amazonian and Andean regions using remote sensing data

  2008cited by this paper
• Linking global turnover of species and environments

  2008cited by this paper
• A rapid upward shift of a forest ecotone during 40 years of warming in the Green Mountains of Vermont

  2008cited by this paper
• Amazon Forest Structure from IKONOS Satellite Data and the Automated Characterization of Forest Canopy Properties

  2008cited by this paper
• An ecosystem services framework to support both practical conservation and economic development

  2008cited by this paper
• Invasive plants transform the three-dimensional structure of rain forests

  2008cited by this paper
• Can remote sensing of land cover improve species distribution modelling?

  2008cited by this paper
• Spatial Patterns of Pinyon–Juniper Woodland Expansion in Central Nevada

  2007cited by this paper
• Identifying and Characterizing Dominant Plants as an Indicator of Community Condition

  2007cited by this paper
• PLANT ASSEMBLAGE COMPOSITION EXPLAINS AND PREDICTS HOW BIODIVERSITY AFFECTS SALT MARSH FUNCTIONING

  2007cited by this paper
• Distance decay in spectral space in analysing ecosystem β‐diversity

  2007cited by this paper
• Environmental correlates of avian diversity in lowland Panama rain forests

  2007cited by this paper
• Spatial turnover in the global avifauna

  2007cited by this paper
• A new generation of climate‐change experiments: events, not trends

  2007cited by this paper
• Conservation Planning for Ecosystem Services

  2006cited by this paper
• Characterizing the landscape dynamics of an invasive plant and risk of invasion using remote sensing.

  2006cited by this paper
• Plant community responses to experimental warming across the tundra biome

  2006cited by this paper
• Surveying mountain pine beetle damage of forests: A review of remote sensing opportunities

  2006cited by this paper
• Mapping ecosystem services: Practical challenges and opportunities in linking GIS and value transfer

  2006cited by this paper
• Wetland resources : Status, trends, ecosystem services, and restorability

  2005cited by this paper
• PREDICTING WOODY‐PLANT SPECIES RICHNESS IN TROPICAL DRY FORESTS: A CASE STUDY FROM SOUTH FLORIDA, USA

  2005cited by this paper
• Ecosystems and human well-being: synthesis

  2005cited by this paper
• APPLYING COMMUNITY STRUCTURE ANALYSIS TO ECOSYSTEM FUNCTION: EXAMPLES FROM POLLINATION AND CARBON STORAGE

  2005cited by this paper
• Land‐use choices: balancing human needs and ecosystem function

  2004cited by this paper
• Remote sensing of vegetation and land-cover change in Arctic Tundra Ecosystems

  2004cited by this paper
• Geographic distribution of major crops across the world

  2004cited by this paper
• Species richness–decomposition relationships depend on species dominance

  2004cited by this paper
• From space to species: ecological applications for remote sensing

  2003cited by this paper
• Remote sensing of regional crop production in the Yaqui Valley, Mexico: estimates and uncertainties

  2003cited by this paper
• LINKING FLORISTIC PATTERNS WITH SOIL HETEROGENEITY AND SATELLITE IMAGERY IN ECUADORIAN AMAZONIA

  2003cited by this paper
• A comparison of three approaches for predicting C4 species cover of northern mixed grass prairie

  2003cited by this paper
• ENERGY, WATER, AND BROAD‐SCALE GEOGRAPHIC PATTERNS OF SPECIES RICHNESS

  2003cited by this paper
• Remote sensing for biodiversity science and conservation

  2003cited by this paper
• Catastrophic regime shifts in ecosystems: linking theory to observation

  2003cited by this paper
• Dominant species maintain ecosystem function with non‐random species loss

  2003cited by this paper
• SPECIES‐RICH PLANTINGS INCREASE BIOMASS AND NITROGEN ACCUMULATION IN A WETLAND RESTORATION EXPERIMENT

  2003cited by this paper
• The global distribution of cultivable lands: current patterns and sensitivity to possible climate change

  2002cited by this paper
• INTERPRETING WOODY PLANT RICHNESS FROM SEASONAL RATIOS OF PHOTOSYNTHESIS

  2002cited by this paper
• Empirical Relationships between Species Richness, Evenness, and Proportional Diversity

  2001cited by this paper
• Using remote sensing to assess biodiversity

  2001cited by this paper
• Declining Biodiversity: Why Species Matter and How Their Functions Might Be Restored in Californian Tidal Marshes

  2001cited by this paper
• Linking biodiversity to ecosystem function: implications for conservation ecology

  2000influential reference
• Getting the measure of biodiversity

  2000cited by this paper
• Functional redundancy among tidal marsh halophytes : a test

  1999cited by this paper

• Relationship Between the Synanthropization Level, Structure, and Diversity of Complexes of Dominant Species in Vegetation Sites with Different Degrees of Anthropogenic Transformation

  2025cites this paper
• Sub-pixel detection of dominant grass evolutionary lineages at four sites across the Great Plains, U.S. using hyperspectral data

  2025cites this paper
• Priority areas for the conservation of tree species in a neotropical seasonal dry forest under deforestation and climate change scenarios

  2025cites this paper
• Understory Diversity Affects Monodominance of Anogeissus leiocarpa

  2025cites this paper
• Integrating field- and remote sensing data to perceive species heterogeneity across a climate gradient

  2024cites this paper
• Leveraging satellite observations to reveal ecological drivers of pest densities across landscapes.

  2024cites this paper
• Modelling the potential distribution of the common impala (Aepyceros melampus melampus) across Africa's changing climate

  2023cites this paper
• Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning in Observational Analyses

  2022cites this paper
• Distribution and Structure Analysis of Mountain Permafrost Landscape in Orulgan Ridge (Northeast Siberia) Using Google Earth Engine

  2022cites this paper
• Interpolating missing land cover data using stochastic spatial random forests for improved change detection

  2021cites this paper
• An ecological network approach to predict ecosystem service vulnerability to species losses

  2021cites this paper
• Scaling‐up biodiversity‐ecosystem functioning research

  2020cites this paper
• Remote Sensing of Geodiversity as a Link to Biodiversity

  2020cites this paper
• Remote Sensing Applied in Forest Management to Optimize Ecosystem Services: Advances in Research

  2020cites this paper
• Demystifying dominant species.

  2019cites this paper
• Valuable habitat and low deforestation can reduce biodiversity gains from development rights markets

  2018cites this paper
• Managing plant invasions through the lens of remote sensing: A review of progress and the way forward.

  2018cites this paper