Evaluating the species energy relationship with the newest measures of ecosystem energy: NDVI versus MODIS primary production

Abstract

Ecosystem energy has been shown to be a strong correlate with biological diversity at continental scales. Early efforts to characterize this association used the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) to represent ecosystem energy. While this spectral vegetation index covaries with measures of ecosystem energy such as net primary production, the covariation is known to degrade in areas of very low vegetation or in areas of dense forest. Two of the new vegetation products from the MODIS sensor, derived by integrating spectral reflectance, climate data, and land cover, are thought to better approximate primary productivity than NDVI. In this study, we determine if the newMODIS derived measures of primary production, gross primary productivity (GPP) and net primary productivity (NPP) better explain variation in bird richness than historically used NDVI. Moreover, we evaluate if the two productivity measures covary more strongly with bird diversity in those vegetation conditions where limitations of NDVI are well recognized.

Citation

Phillips, Linda B.; Hansen, Andrew J.; Flather, Curtis H. 2008. Evaluating the species energy relationship with the newest measures of ecosystem energy: NDVI versus MODIS primary production. Remote Sensing of Environment. 112: 4381-4392.