Browsing by Author "Townsend, Philip A."

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    Canopy spectral reflectance detects oak wilt at the landscape scale using phylogenetic discrimination
    (2022-04-26) Sapes, Gerard; Lapadat, Cathleen; Schweiger, Anna K.; Juzwik, Jennifer; Montgomery, Rebecca; Gholizadeh, Hamed; Townsend, Philip A.; Gamon, John A.; Cavender-Bares, Jeannine; cavender@umn.edu; Cavender-Bares, Jeannine
    The oak wilt disease caused by the invasive fungal pathogen Bretziella fagacearum is one of the greatest threats to oak-dominated forests across the Eastern United States. Accurate detection and monitoring over large areas are necessary for management activities to effectively mitigate and prevent the spread of oak wilt. Canopy spectral reflectance contains both phylogenetic and physiological information across the visible near-infrared (VNIR) and short-wave infrared (SWIR) ranges that can be used to identify diseased red oaks. We develop partial least square discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) models using airborne hyperspectral reflectance to detect diseased canopies and assess the importance of VNIR, SWIR, phylogeny, and physiology for oak wilt detection. We achieve high ac- curacy through a three-step phylogenetic process in which we first distinguish oaks from other species (90% accuracy), then red oaks from white oaks (Quercus macrocarpa) (93% accuracy), and, lastly, infected from non- infected trees (80% accuracy). Including SWIR wavelengths increased model accuracy by ca. 20% relative to models based on VIS-NIR wavelengths alone; using a phylogenetic approach also increased model accuracy by ca. 20% over a single-step classification. SWIR wavelengths include spectral information important in differentiating red oaks from other species and in distinguishing diseased red oaks from healthy red oaks. We determined the most important wavelengths to identify oak species, red oaks, and diseased red oaks. We also demonstrated that several multispectral indices associated with physiological decline can detect differences between healthy and diseased trees. The wavelengths in these indices also tended to be among the most important wavelengths for disease detection within PLS-DA models, indicating a convergence of the methods. Indices were most significant for detecting oak wilt during late August, especially those associated with canopy photosynthetic activity and water status. Our study suggests that coupling phylogenetics, physiology, and canopy spectral reflectance pro- vides an interdisciplinary and comprehensive approach that enables detection of forest diseases at large scales. These results have potential for direct application by forest managers for detection to initiate actions to mitigate the disease and prevent pathogen spread.
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    Data and code for spectral canopy transmittance in diverse tree communities
    (2024-12-02) Williams, Laura J.; Kovach, Kyle R.; Guzman Q., J. Antonio; Stefanski, Artur; Bermudez, Raimundo; Butler, Ethan E.; Glenn-Stone, Catherine; Hajek, Peter; Klama, Johanna; Moradi, Aboubakr; Park, Maria H.; Scherer-Lorenzen, Michael; Townsend, Philip A.; Reich, Peter B.; Cavender-Bares, Jeannine; Schuman, Meredith C.; laura.williams@westernsydney.edu.au; Williams, Laura
    Light may shape forest function not only as a source of energy or a cause of stress but also as a context cue: plant photoreceptors can detect specific wavelengths of light, and plants use this information to assess their neighborhoods and adjust their patterns of growth and allocation. Here, we examined how the spectral profile of light (350-2200 nm) transmitted through tree canopies differs among communities within three tree diversity experiments on two continents (200 plots each planted with one to 12 tree species). This dataset includes data and metadata on canopy transmittance and leaf area index (LAI) measured on these plots as well as leaf-level transmittance measured for each species in monoculture plots. Data processing code and example analysis code are also provided.
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    Remotely detected aboveground plant function predicts belowground processes in two prairie diversity experiments
    (2021-06-08) Cavender-Bares, Jeannine; Schweiger, Anna K.; Gamon, John; Gholizadeh, Hamed; Kimberly, Helzer; Lapadat, Cathleen; Madritch, Michael; Townsend, Philip A.; Wang, Zhihui; Hobbie, Sarah E.; cavender@umn.edu; Cavender-Bares, Jeannine
    Imaging spectroscopy provides the opportunity to incorporate leaf and canopy optical data into ecological studies, but the extent to which remote sensing of vegetation can enhance the study of belowground processes is not well understood. In terrestrial systems, aboveground and belowground vegetation quantity and quality are coupled, and both influence belowground microbial processes and nutrient cycling, providing a potential link between remote sensing and belowground processes. We hypothesized that ecosystem productivity, and the chemical, structural and phylogenetic-functional composition of plant communities would be detectable with remote sensing and could be used to predict belowground plant and soil processes in two grassland biodiversity experiments—the BioDIV experiment at Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve in Minnesota and the Wood River Nature Conservancy experiment in Nebraska. Specifically, we tested whether aboveground vegetation chemistry and productivity, as detected from airborne sensors, predict soil properties, microbial processes and community composition. Imaging spectroscopy data were used to map aboveground biomass and green vegetation cover, functional traits and phylogenetic-functional community composition of vegetation. We examined the relationships between the image-derived variables and soil carbon and nitrogen concentration, microbial community composition, biomass and extracellular enzyme activity, and soil processes, including net nitrogen mineralization. In the BioDIV experiment—which has low overall diversity and productivity despite high variation in each—belowground processes were driven mainly by variation in the amount of organic matter inputs to soils. As a consequence, soil respiration, microbial biomass and enzyme activity, and fungal and bacterial composition and diversity were significantly predicted by remotely sensed vegetation cover and biomass. In contrast, at Wood River—where plant diversity and productivity were consistently higher—remotely sensed functional, chemical and phylogenetic composition of vegetation predicted belowground extracellular enzyme activity, microbial biomass, and net nitrogen mineralization rates. Aboveground biomass (or cover) did not predict these belowground attributes. The strong, contrasting associations between the quantity and chemistry of aboveground inputs with belowground soil processes and properties provide a basis for using imaging spectroscopy to understand belowground processes across productivity gradients in grassland systems. However, a mechanistic understanding of how above and belowground components interact among different ecosystems remains critical to extending these results broadly.