From mountain peaks to microclimates, new maps bring satellite big data down to Earth
Zooming from her office, Michigan State University researcher Kelly Kapsar showed satellite images from across the United States. In some, different colors revealed the precise heights of the forested ridges in the Sierra Nevada or the craggy peaks of the Rockies and the valleys between them. Others showed the pine flatwoods of southern Florida or the smooth, rolling grasslands of the Kansas…
A new study published in the journal Scientific Data reveals how satellite-derived climate and elevation metrics can quantify landscape heterogeneity beyond just mean values, providing crucial data for understanding microclimates and the distribution of species. Researchers at Michigan State University have developed a set of open-source metrics that capture a landscape's roughness and complexity, including terrain and environmental roughness.
These metrics, calculated using an open-source computer program called "geodiv," can be applied across U.S. ecological monitoring sites to characterize microclimates and geodiversity relevant to species distributions. The study, led by Kelly Kapsar, Phoebe Zarnetske, and Lala Kounta, offers guidance for researchers to use these metrics at other locations and scales, bridging the gap between satellite data and on-the-ground observations.
By combining satellite data with measurements of plants and animals, researchers aim to better predict where species are most likely to thrive in the future.
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