Vegetation indices do not capture forest cover variation in Upland Siberian Larch Forests

View/ Open
Date
2018-10-25Author
Loranty, Michael M.
Concept link
Davydov, Sergey P.
Concept link
Kropp, Heather
Concept link
Alexander, Heather D.
Concept link
Mack, Michelle C.
Concept link
Natali, Susan M.
Concept link
Zimov, Nikita S.
Concept link
Metadata
Show full item recordCitable URI
https://hdl.handle.net/1912/10807As published
https://doi.org/10.3390/rs10111686DOI
10.3390/rs10111686Abstract
Boreal forests are changing in response to climate, with potentially important feedbacks to regional and global climate through altered carbon cycle and albedo dynamics. These feedback processes will be affected by vegetation changes, and feedback strengths will largely rely on the spatial extent and timing of vegetation change. Satellite remote sensing is widely used to monitor vegetation dynamics, and vegetation indices (VIs) are frequently used to characterize spatial and temporal trends in vegetation productivity. In this study we combine field observations of larch forest cover across a 25 km2 upland landscape in northeastern Siberia with high-resolution satellite observations to determine how the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) are related to forest cover. Across 46 forest stands ranging from 0% to 90% larch canopy cover, we find either no change, or declines in NDVI and EVI derived from PlanetScope CubeSat and Landsat data with increasing forest cover. In conjunction with field observations of NDVI, these results indicate that understory vegetation likely exerts a strong influence on vegetation indices in these ecosystems. This suggests that positive decadal trends in NDVI in Siberian larch forests may correspond primarily to increases in understory productivity, or even to declines in forest cover. Consequently, positive NDVI trends may be associated with declines in terrestrial carbon storage and increases in albedo, rather than increases in carbon storage and decreases in albedo that are commonly assumed. Moreover, it is also likely that important ecological changes such as large changes in forest density or variable forest regrowth after fire are not captured by long-term NDVI trends.
Description
© The Author(s), 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License. The definitive version was published in Loranty, Michael M.; Davydov, Sergey P.; Kropp, Heather; Alexander, Heather D.; Mack, Michelle C.; Natali, Susan M.; Zimov, Nikita S. 2018. "Vegetation Indices Do Not Capture Forest Cover Variation in Upland Siberian Larch Forests." Remote Sens. 10, no. 11: 1686, doi:10.3390/rs10111686.
Collections
Suggested Citation
Loranty, Michael M.; Davydov, Sergey P.; Kropp, Heather; Alexander, Heather D.; Mack, Michelle C.; Natali, Susan M.; Zimov, Nikita S. 2018. "Vegetation Indices Do Not Capture Forest Cover Variation in Upland Siberian Larch Forests." Remote Sens. 10, no. 11: 1686.The following license files are associated with this item:
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
Epibenthic community biomass in Aleutian Island kelp forests, June 2016 and July 2017 (Kelp Forest Ecosystem Engineer Loss project)
Edwards, Matthew; Konar, Brenda (Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO). Contact: bco-dmo-data@whoi.edu, 2019-12-11)Epibenthic community biomass in Aleutian Island kelp forests, June 2016 and July 2017. For a complete list of measurements, refer to the full dataset description in the supplemental file 'Dataset_description.pdf'. The ... -
Table of taxonomic hierarchy and the sampling method for organisms collection in Aleutian Island kelp forests, June 2016 and July 2017 (Kelp Forest Ecosystem Engineer Loss project)
Edwards, Matthew; Konar, Brenda (Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO). Contact: bco-dmo-data@whoi.edu, 2019-12-11)This dataset includes the taxonomic hierarchy for epibenthic community organisms collected in Aleutian Island kelp forests, based on biomass data. It also lists the method used to sample, either by a scrape collection or ... -
Epibenthic community abundance in Aleutian Island kelp forests, June 2016 and July 2017 (Kelp Forest Ecosystem Engineer Loss project)
Edwards, Matthew; Konar, Brenda (Biological and Chemical Oceanography Data Management Office (BCO-DMO). Contact: bco-dmo-data@whoi.edu, 2019-12-11)Epibenthic community abundance in Aleutian Island kelp forests, June 2016 and July 2017. For a complete list of measurements, refer to the full dataset description in the supplemental file 'Dataset_description.pdf'. The ...