Leveraging remote sensing and crowd-sourced biodiversity data for enhanced plant functional trait mapping
Nature Communications, vol. 17
Abstract
High-resolution maps of plant functional traits are crucial for understanding terrestrial ecosystem processes; however, their integration into ecosystem models has been hindered by uncertainties and a lack of spatially detailed data. Here we combine optical remote sensing, global crowd-sourced biodiversity records and plant trait databases to map community trait distributions worldwide at 1-km resolution, estimating community-weighted means (CWMs) and higher-order moments (standard deviation, skewness, and kurtosis) for specific leaf area (SLA), leaf nitrogen (LNC) and leaf phosphorus (LPC) concentrations. Benchmarking against sPlotOpen plot-level CWMs shows low explained variance (R2 = 0.10–0.27 across traits), indicating limited plot-scale predictive skill under current limited open global benchmarks and scale mismatches. Agreement increases when using a canopy-weighted comparator (TWM; R2 = 0.22–0.38; relative RMSE ≈ 12–18%), consistent with the top-of-canopy sensitivity of optical sensors. By providing spatially explicit trait distributions and their higher-order moments, our findings deliver improved detail for understanding biodiversity patterns and ecosystem functioning and provide landscape-scale insights into trait-mediated coexistence. This work enhances ecological modeling and offers a foundation for assessing the impacts of global environmental changes, advancing our understanding of plant functional diversity’s role in ecosystem resilience and sustainability. Plant functional traits govern ecosystem processes but lack spatially detailed global representations. Here, the authors combine remote sensing and crowd-sourced biodiversity data to map leaf trait distributions and their higher-order moments worldwide.
Authors 20
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Álvaro Moreno‐Martínez corresponding
Affiliation as printed
Image Processing Laboratory, Universitat de Valéncia, Valéncia, Spain. alvaro.moreno@uv.es
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Affiliation as printed
Image Processing Laboratory, Universitat de Valéncia, Valéncia, Spain
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Affiliation as printed
Image Processing Laboratory, Universitat de Valéncia, Valéncia, Spain
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German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research · Leipzig University
Affiliation as printed
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Germany
Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
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German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research · Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry
Affiliation as printed
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Germany
Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany
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Affiliation as printed
Department for Sensor-based Geoinformatics, Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany
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Affiliation as printed
BIOME Lab, Department of Biological, Geological and Environmental Sciences (BiGeA), Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy
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Jet Propulsion Laboratory · Aarhus University
Affiliation as printed
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA, USA
Section for Ecoinformatics & Biodiversity, Department of Biology, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark
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Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry
Affiliation as printed
Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany
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Affiliation as printed
Institute of Environmental Sciences, Leiden University, Leiden, the Netherlands
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Affiliation as printed
Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA
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German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research · Leipzig University
Affiliation as printed
German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv), Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Germany
Leipzig University, Leipzig, Germany
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Affiliation as printed
Institute of Geomatics, BOKU, Vienna, Austria
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Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas · Centre for Research on Ecology and Forestry Applications · Global Ecology Unit CREAF-CSIC-UAB
Affiliation as printed
Global Ecology Unit, CREAF (CSIC), Barcelona, Spain
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Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry
Affiliation as printed
Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany
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Affiliation as printed
Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA
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University of Minnesota · University of Wisconsin–Madison
Affiliation as printed
Department of Forest Resources, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN, USA
University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA
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Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry
Affiliation as printed
Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, Jena, Germany
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Affiliation as printed
Department for Sensor-based Geoinformatics, Faculty of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Freiburg, Freiburg, Germany
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Affiliation as printed
Image Processing Laboratory, Universitat de Valéncia, Valéncia, Spain
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