Relationships among remotely sensed forest canopy traits and insect community composition

Globally, insects are the largest and most diverse group of animals, representing an overwhelming percentage of Earth’s biodiversity. In addition, insects and their associated pathogens constitute one of the single largest disturbance threats to forest ecosystems in North America. However, landscape-scale drivers of insect abundance and diversity are not well characterized, especially so in urban ecosystems. Spatial variation in host-plant quality, however, is recognized as having an influence on the distribution and abundance of herbivorous insects. Plant quality is, in turn, influenced by variation in local resource availability, creating variation in host-plant suitability for herbivores across the landscape. Recent advances in hyperspectral remote sensing techniques provide the opportunity to measure many known foliar constituents important to insect growth and development (e.g., nitrogen concentrations). The purpose of this research is to examine the relationships between remotely-sensed foliar constituents, Lidar-derived forest structure, landscape-level land-use patterns, and insect community composition data to determine combinations of characteristics that influence insect dynamics in human-occupied forest ecosystems.

 

Lab Members:

Ryan Sword, John Couture