Remotely sensed indicators and open-access biodiversity data to assess bird diversity patterns in Mediterranean rural landscapes.

ABSTRACT: Biodiversity monitoring at simultaneously fine spatial resolutions and large spatial extents is needed but limited by operational trade-offs and costs. Open-access data may be cost-effective to address those limitations. We test the use of open-access satellite imagery (NDVI texture variables) and biodiversity data, assembled from GBIF, to investigate the relative importance of variables of habitat extent and structure as indicators of bird community richness and dissimilarity in the Alentejo region (Portugal). Results show that, at the landscape scale, forest bird richness is better indicated by the availability of tree cover in the overall landscape than by the extent or structure of the forest habitats. Open-land birds also respond to landscape structure, namely to the spectral homogene

SUBMITTER: Ribeiro I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6497664 | biostudies-literature | 2019 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature