Estimating species richness, composition, and structure in Hawaiian dry forests
Stephanie
Pau, UCLA, paus@ucla.edu
(Presenting)
Thomas
W
Gillespie, UCLA, tg@geog.ucla.edu
Tropical dry forests may be the most endangered forest ecosystem worldwide. Researchers have stated that in Hawaii, over 90% of the original dry forest coverage has been eliminated, however, the actual extent of native dry forest cover may be as low as 1%. Currently there are few data on the regional extent or location of tropical dry forests and no data on the species richness or structure of these dry forests in Hawaii. One of the most widely used indices in remote sensing of forest ecosystems is the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). NDVI may have the capability to discern information on forest habitat quality by providing an estimate of primary productivity, and hence plant species diversity or species richness based on the species-energy hypothesis. Although previous studies have demonstrated a positive relationship between NDVI and species richness in tropical forests, in Hawaiian forests, native-dominated fragments with higher species richness do not have higher NDVI values. Preliminary analysis using MOD13A2 LAI and MOD09 NDVI data from 2000-2006 resulted in significantly higher LAI and NDVI in non-native forests compared to native-dominated forests. Similar results were demonstrated using higher resolution ASTER data.
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