Project: Bioscape – Impacts of Invasive Alien Species on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning

Summary

This project will use finer spatial and spectral resolution hyperspectral imagery and data fusion to generate improved maps of:

a) alien tree invasions (based on AVIRIS-NG, LVIS and ALOS),

b) structural and spectral diversity (based on LVIS and AVIRIS-NG) at both local (alpha) and landscape (beta) scales, and

c) four important ecosystem functions: primary production and the temporal stability of primary production (based on MODIS and FluxSat), water-use efficiency (based on the ECOSTRESS algorithm and using AVIRIS-NG and HyTES), and fuel loading (based on LVIS).

Cover photo: invasive alien pines in the Fynbos Biome, Western Cape

Map

This Bioscape project will have four sites, demarcated by the blue polygons on the map.

Project overview

This project has two main objectives and three hypotheses which will be tested:

Objectives:

Objective 1) Map biological invasions, structural and spectral diversity, and ecosystem functioning using airborne and satellite imagery.

Objective 2) Test ecological hypotheses related to biodiversity, invasion, and ecosystem functioning

Hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1) Higher structural and spectral alpha-diversity decrease invasibility, after accounting for confounding effects of landscape-scale covariates.

Hypothesis 2) As alien tree invasions progress, they increase structural and spectral alpha-diversity, but decrease beta-diversity.

Hypothesis 3) Ecosystem functioning (net primary productivity and its temporal stability, water use efficiency, and fuel load) depends on both invasion status (H3A) and biodiversity (H3B).

Methods:

The team

The South African team is made up of:

Prof Tony Rebelo

Dr Alanna Rebelo (SA project lead)

Nicholas Coertze (MSc student)

 

The team from the USA includes:

Prof Peter Adler

Dr Ben Poulter

Dr Elisa Van Cleemput

Katharine Suding

Laura Dee

Niklaus Zimmerman