Application of remote sensing technologies to assess responses of a boreal keystone species to variability in food and structural cover

应用遥感技术评估北方关键物种对食物和结构覆盖变化的反应

• 批准号: RTI-2020-00640
• 负责人: Murray, Dennis
• 金额: $ 10.56万
• 依托单位: Trent University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Research Tools and Instruments
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2019-01-01 至 2020-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=693591
• 关键词: Application; remote; sensing; technologies; assess

Remote sensing technologies have only recently become available at a sufficiently fine scale and cost-efficient pricing to relate variation in the biotic environment to animal ecology and population dynamics. The requested infrastructure (unmanned aerial vehicle (i.e., drone), LiDAR, RGB and multispectral cameras) is needed to support D. Murray (TrentU) and S. Boutin (UAlberta) in their long-term research on snowshoe hares and boreal ecosystem dynamics at Kluane Lake, Yukon. Hares exhibit dramatic 10-year population cycles that reverberate through the boreal forest ecosystem. Hares are importantly influenced by shrubs and trees, which offer food and structural cover from predation; spatio-temporal variation in these resources likely impacts hare population ecology and boreal ecosystem dynamics. Multispectral imagery will be used to document spectral properties of plants, to infer species-specific phenology, productivity, and growth. Combined LiDAR and RGB imagery will produce full colour, three-dimensional point clouds for robust assessment of vegetation structure (i.e., cover). Our UAV is designed for challenging industrial applications and will be flown over our 6 permanent hare study areas (36 ha each), year-round and at a high frequency (~20X flights per year), to provide fine-scale inter-annual and seasonal assessment of food/cover resources, including during winter when snowcover affects resource availability. This intensity of remote sensing sampling is unprecedented in ecology and is only achievable by permanently housing the equipment at our remote Yukon field station. Remote sensing surveys will be conducted in tandem with ongoing and intensive research involving GPS telemetry and accelerometry of hares and their main predators (Canada lynx), to reveal how dynamic changes in hare food/cover affect shifts in hare behaviour and movements. Further, the proposed infrastructure will serve to elucidate whether patterns of hare risk avoidance and mortality conform to spatial or temporal shifts in food/cover. Because instrumented lynx overlap spatially with hares on our study areas, the equipment will provide unprecedented insight into how variation in forest structure and phenology can trickle up' to shape predator behaviour, habitat selection and hunting strategy. Over a longer term, this research will also help elucidate whether climate change is altering the structure and function of plant resources in the boreal forest, and whether such variation contributes to ecosystem-level changes like attenuation of cyclic dynamics in herbivores and their predators. The infrastructure will serve to train high quality personnel (HQP) in instrument operation and product analysis, which will dramatically improve their marketability and employment trajectory.

遥感技术直到最近才以足够精细的规模和具有成本效益的定价来提供，以将生物环境的变化与动物生态学和人群动态联系起来。需要在他们对雪鞋的Hares Hares和Boreal Ecosystem Dynamics的长期研究中，需要支持D. Murray（Trentu）和S. Boutin（Ualberta）在Kluanane Lake，Yukon，Yukon，Yukon湖。野兔表现出戏剧性的10年人口周期，这些周期在北方森林生态系统中回荡。野兔重要的是受灌木和树木的影响，这些灌木和树木提供了捕食的食物和结构覆盖。这些资源中的时空变化可能会影响野兔种群生态学和北方生态系统动力学。多光谱图像将用于记录植物的光谱特性，以推断物种特异性物候，生产力和生长。 LIDAR和RGB图像组合将产生全彩色，三维点云，以良好的植被结构评估（即覆盖）。我们的无人机设计用于具有挑战性的工业应用，并将在我们的6个永久性野兔研究区域（每个36公顷），全年和高频（每年约20倍的航班）上飞行，以提供对食品/覆盖资源的精细规模评估，包括在冬季雪覆时雪覆时会影响资源的可用性。这种遥感抽样的强度在生态学上是前所未有的，只有在我们的远程育空场站永久安装设备才能实现。遥感调查将与涉及Hares及其主要捕食者（加拿大Lynx）的GPS遥测和加速度计量的持续进行的研究一起进行，以揭示野兔食品/覆盖率的动态变化如何影响野兔行为和运动的转变。此外，拟议的基础设施将有助于阐明野兔风险避免风险和死亡率是否符合食物/覆盖的空间或时间变化。由于仪器的Lynx在我们的研究区域上与野兔在空间上重叠，因此设备将提供前所未有的见解，了解森林结构和物候的变化如何滴入”以塑造捕食者行为，栖息地选择和狩猎策略。从长远来看，这项研究还将有助于阐明气候变化是否正在改变北方森林中植物资源的结构和功能，以及这种变化是否有助于生态系统级别的变化，例如食草动物及其捕食者中环状动态的衰减。基础设施将用于培训高质量人员（HQP）在仪器运营和产品分析中，这将显着改善其销售性和就业轨迹。