Measuring plant biomass remotely using drones in arid landscapes.

ABSTRACT: Measurement of variation in plant biomass is essential for answering many ecological and evolutionary questions. Quantitative estimates require plant destruction for laboratory analyses, while field studies use allometric approaches based on simple measurement of plant dimensions.We estimated the biomass of individual shrub-sized plants, using a low-cost unmanned aerial system (drone), enabling rapid data collection and non-destructive sampling. We compared volume measurement (a surrogate for biomass) and sampling time, from the simple dimension measurements and drone, to accurate laboratory-derived biomass weights. We focused on three Australian plant species which are ecologically important to their terrestrial and floodplain ecosystems: porcupine grass Triodia scariosa, Queenslan

SUBMITTER: McCann JA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9106562 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature