Moody, Aaron: University of North Carolina (Project Lead)
Project Funding:
2006 - 2010
NRA: 2005 NASA: Terrestrial Ecology and Biodiversity
Funded by NASA
Abstract:
The proposed work is organized according to four major areas of inquiry relating to the
causes, consequences and distributions of plant species richness. Specifically, we will
address the following: 1) productivity/diversity and stability/diversity relationships; 2)
heterogeneity/diversity relationships; 3) species turnover (or beta-diversity) along
environmental gradients; and 4) scaling spatially distributed plot data on species richness
up to regional scales. These four areas will be studied using an integrated database
combining over 5000 plots distributed throughout South Carolina, North Carolina, and
Virginia, with remote sensing variables derived from MODIS, AVHRR and TM/ETM+.
In addition, we will focus on how these relationships scale, and how they vary across
functional groups, for native and exotic species, and for other divisions of plant taxa.
Overall plant species richness and richness within different species groups will be
determined from plot data. For each plot location, productivity will be approximated
using NDVI from MODIS, and TM/ETM+, and NPP from MODIS. Stability will be
determined using interannual variability in NDVI from AVHRR, and in NDVI and NPP
from MODIS. Heterogeneity will be quantified for a set of nested quadrat around each
plot location, and will be based on variability in NDVI, NPP, and land cover within
quadrats. Thus we will quantify the form of relationships between productivity, stability,
and heterogeneity and species richness. We will also study how these relationships differ
with grain (data resolution), extent, and for different groups of species (e.g. different
functional groups, and native and exotic species. Species turnover along environmental
gradients will be examined for gradients in productivity, stability, heterogeneity, and
surface temperature (from MODIS composited surface temperature products). In this
portion of the analysis we will control for decay in compositional similarity with
distance, and for general position of plot pairs along the entire range of each gradient.
Finally, we will use information from the above the above analyses to develop models for
scaling plot based data up to regional scale distributions of plant richness for the different
species groups considered.
The objectives and datasets engaged in the proposed work are uniquely suited to address
a set of fundamental questions in ecology and NASA goals. Specifically: 1) How does
community structure relate to ecosystem function? 2) How does community structure
relate to ecosystem stability? 3) What is the effect of landscape heterogeneity on
community structure? 3) What is the relative value of different remote sensing measures
for capturing the above relationships? 4) How does community structure change along
environmental gradients? 5) What are the scale dependencies of these above
relationships? 6) How well can we use these relationships, scale dependencies, and
remote sensing indicators to map plant species richness across regional scales using plot
data and satellite data?
Publications:
Costanza, J. K., Moody, A. 2011. Deciding Where to Burn: Stakeholder Priorities for Prescribed Burning of a Fire-Dependent Ecosystem. Ecology and Society. 16(1). DOI: 10.5751/es-03897-160114
Costanza, J. K., Moody, A., Peet, R. K. 2011. Multi-scale environmental heterogeneity as a predictor of plant species richness. Landscape Ecology. 26(6), 851-864. DOI: 10.1007/s10980-011-9613-3
Costanza, J. K., Weiss, J., Moody, A. 2013. Examining the knowing-doing gap in the conservation of a fire-dependent ecosystem. Biological Conservation. 158, 107-115. DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2012.08.025
Moody, M. 2010. Landscapes of the Damned: Natural Setting inLa casa verde. Kentucky Romance Quarterly. 27(4), 495-508. DOI: 10.1080/03648664.1980.9933410
2008 NASA Carbon Cycle & Ecosystems Joint Science Workshop Posters
- Landscape heterogeneity and plant species richness in the Southeastern US
-- (Jennifer Kwasny Costanza, Todd Jobe, Aaron Moody)
[abstract]
[poster]
More details may be found in the following project profile(s):
