Using NASA capabilities for biodiversity assessment and ecological forecasting in coral reef environments Frank Muller-Karger, Christopher Moses Serge Andréfouët University of South Florida, St Petersburg, FL, USA Institut de Recherche pour le Développement, Nouméa, New Caledonia, France NASA Biodiversity Ecological Forecasting Meeting – Washington DC - August 29 to 31, 2005

Using NASA capabilities for biodiversity assessment and ecological forecasting in coral reef environments What is biodiversity assessment, and ecological forecasting? What needs to be done for science and conservation goals in coral reefs? What is NASA currently doing for science and conservation of coral reefs ? How NASA could catalyze on-going and new spatially- explicit science and conservation applications ?

What is biodiversity assessment, and ecological forecasting? What needs to be done for science and conservation goals in coral reefs? What is NASA currently doing for science and conservation of coral reefs ? How NASA could catalyze on-going and new spatially- explicit science and conservation applications ? Using NASA capabilities for biodiversity assessment and ecological forecasting in coral reef environments

What do we mean by biodiversity assessments? And ecological forecasting? Axis 4: Management, biodiversity conservation Axis 2 : Factors controlling diversity Axis 3: Influence of diversity on processes Axis 1: Inventory of diversity Definition: Biodiversity is the sum of all biotic variations from the level of genes to an ecosystem (Purvis and Hector, 2000) Biodiversity subjects: Ecological forecasting: dynamics of these fields under climate and human societies change scenario.

Organism, coral colony, fish, invertebrates, etc… Community, habitat, reefscape Geomorphology of island, reef, lagoon, land Structure of reef complexes Climate of coral reef regions The axes are relevant for any spatial scale Papua- New-Guinea

What is biodiversity assessment, and ecological forecasting? What needs to be done for science and conservation goals in coral reefs? What is NASA currently doing for science and conservation of coral reefs ? How NASA could catalyze on-going and new spatially- explicit science and conservation applications ? Using NASA capabilities for biodiversity assessment and ecological forecasting in coral reef environments

Priorities Reef mapping (geomorphology, habitats, communities, species) –Status of reefs (location, extent, diversity, etc…) –Identification of areas of high interest (marginal), or “average” representative areas –Enhanced monitoring designs High-resolution reef change detection (habitats, communities, species) –Deconvolution of natural vs human-induced variation in reef communities Climatology of land, ocean and atmosphere around reefs and the induced forcing of local water masses (circulation, temperature, pollution, etc…) –EOS time-series and climatology –Event (hurricanes, blooms, bleaching…) characterization Understanding (modeling) of the biodiversity dynamics (evolution, connectivity, hydrodynamic forcing, human uses, etc…) and forecasting –Multidisciplinary approaches, hypothesis-driven modeling scenario –Biocomplexity approaches Improving conservation practices through science-driven decision processes –Provide at no-cost user-friendly quantitative products to the vast majority of users –Provide expertise to support conservation groups in their analysis (i.e. ecoregional analysis, etc…)

What is biodiversity assessment, and ecological forecasting? What needs to be done for science and conservation goals in coral reefs? What is NASA currently doing for science and conservation of coral reefs ? How NASA could catalyze on-going and new spatially- explicit science and conservation applications ? Using NASA capabilities for biodiversity assessment and ecological forecasting in coral reef environments

NASA’s right stuff (~ ) Status for reef mapping: –Spectrographic in situ studies and compilation of spectral libraries for radiative transfer models (U. Hawaii) –Landsat 7 LTAP with systematic global coral reef acquisitions for the first time. –Geomorphology mapping: Millennium mapping (USF) under completion and distribution of products (JSC-Houston). –Habitats/communities/species mapping: NASA provided for selected sites commercial data (NASA Data Buy) and experimental data (AVIRIS) to several international groups (in the US: U. Hawaii, U. Puerto Rico, USF, NASA laboratories, etc…). Technology assessment, defining the limits on what can be done and justify in which cases new sensors (hyperspectral- spatial) are required. –On-line archive of Landsat images (but not the best archive...cf Landsat data policies) located at SeaWIFS project, from USF/NASA DB, finalized end of –On-line International Space Stations photographs

Pearl and Hermes, Hawaii

Vanua Levu, Fiji

Ishigaki, Ryukyus, Japan