Arctic Tundra Vegetation Functional Types Based on Photosynthetic Physiology and Optical Properties
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2013-04-24
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Citation of Original Publication
K. F. Huemmrich, J. A. Gamon, C. E. Tweedie, P. K. E. Campbell, D. R. Landis and E. M. Middleton, "Arctic Tundra Vegetation Functional Types Based on Photosynthetic Physiology and Optical Properties," in IEEE Journal of Selected Topics in Applied Earth Observations and Remote Sensing, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 265-275, April 2013, doi: 10.1109/JSTARS.2013.2253446.
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This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.
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Abstract
Non-vascular plants (lichens and mosses) are significant components of tundra landscapes and may respond to climate change differently from vascular plants affecting ecosystem carbon balance. Remote sensing provides critical tools for monitoring plant cover types, as optical signals provide a way to scale from plot measurements to regional estimates of biophysical properties, for which spatial-temporal patterns may be analyzed. Gas exchange measurements were collected for pure patches of key vegetation functional types (lichens, mosses, and vascular plants) in sedge tundra at Barrow AK. These functional types were found to have three significantly different values of light use efficiency (LUE) with values of 0.013±0.001, 0.0018±0.0002, and 0.0012±0.0001 C mol ⁻¹ absorbed quanta for vascular plants, mosses and lichens, respectively. Discriminant analysis of the spectra reflectance of these patches identified five spectral bands that separated each of these vegetation functional types as well as nongreen material (bare soil, standing water, and dead leaves). These results were tested along a 100 m transect where midsummer spectral reflectance and vegetation coverage were measured at one meter intervals.