EMIT Satellite-Based Imaging Spectroscopy Detects Dormant-Season Grassland β-Diversity

Monitoring plant diversity is critical to ensuring the sustained resilience of ecosystem services. Remote sensing promises to offer large-scale data for monitoring and managing ecosystem health and biodiversity. Spectral variation calculated from imaging spectroscopy has been shown to correlate positively with plant species diversity. This can be used to examine how plant communities vary across a landscape, also known as β-diversity, at scales that would otherwise be impractical to sample by hand. The majority of research on the relationship between spectral variation and plant β-diversity has been conducted during the growing season. However, growing season data are not always available, especially in semi-arid grasslands with short growing seasons that are often obscured by smoke and clouds. In this study, we show that spectral β-diversity, calculated from Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) imaging spectroscopy, positively correlates with plant β-diversity outside the growing season, in a Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem grassland.