1. Remote sensing and avian biodiversity patterns in the U.S. NASA Biodiversity Science Team Meeting, New York, May 6-8 2009 Anna M. Pidgeon, V. Radeloff, T. Albright, P. Culbert, C. Ritttenhouse, M. Clayton University of Wisconsin-Madison C. Flather, S. Stewart, U.S. Forest Service J. Masek, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center

2. Research questions What determines bird biodiversity patterns? How does disturbance affect bird biodiversity?

3. Research questions What determines bird biodiversity patterns? How does disturbance affect bird biodiversity?

4. Bird biodiversity patterns What determines bird biodiversity patterns?

5. Bird biodiversity patterns The “machinery controlling species diversity”; MacArthur 1972

6. Bird biodiversity patterns

7. Coops et al., 2009, Journal of Biogeography, 36:905-918

8. Bird biodiversity patterns

9. 3x3 Window Standard Deviation TM4 Image texture explained 64% in Wisconsin’s neotropical migrant species richness

10. Bird biodiversity patterns Culbert et al. 2009. IEEE JSTARS, in press

11. Bird biodiversity patterns

12. Barren Transitional Urban/Developed Water Grassland Agriculture Forest Wetland Shrubland National Land Cover Database

14. Bird biodiversity patterns Proportion (%) of possible occurrences in models Pidgeon et al., 2007, Ecological Applications, 17:1989-2010 Lepczyk et al., 2008, Conservation Biology, 22:405-416

15. Research questions What determines bird biodiversity patterns? How does disturbance affect bird biodiversity?

16. Bird biodiversity patterns

17. Research questions What determines bird biodiversity patterns? How does disturbance affect bird biodiversity?

18. Grassland specialists trend 1972-2007

19. Neotropical migrants trends 1972-2007

20. Disturbance and bird biodiversity

21. Hurricanes:  Hurricanes changed species abundances, and community composition  Little change in species richness  Rittenhouse et al., 2009, Global Change Biology, in review Disturbance and bird biodiversity

22. Droughts:  Both richness and abundance were negatively correlated with drought  Abundance was more affected  Albright et al., 2009, Global Change Biology, in review Disturbance and bird biodiversity

25. d1d1 d2d2 Legend BBS route Non-forest Forest Water Post-disturbance forest Disturbed forest Post-disturb. Non-forest

26. Disturbance and bird biodiversity

27.  Forest loss decreased community similarity for all forest birds, and also for most of the guilds  Forest disturbance maintained community similarity for permanent residents and cavity nesters Disturbance and bird biodiversity

29. MODIS Land surface temperature

30. Disturbance and bird biodiversity Standardized seasonal land surface temperature exceedance (SSLSTE)

31. Disturbance and bird biodiversity Lagged response: 2001 SSLSTE vs. 2002 BBS

32. Disturbance and bird biodiversity

35. Research questions What determines bird biodiversity patterns? How does disturbance affect bird biodiversity?

36. Conclusions  Remotely sensed measures of ‘classic’ biodiversity drivers explain biodiversity patterns well  ‘New’ measures (DHI, texture, MODIS LST, dense Landsat stacks) are good predictors  Structure is important in terms of both biophysical and human factors

37. Conclusions  Communities are continuously changing  Disturbance affects both interannual variability and long-term bird community changes  Abundance is more sensitive than richness

38. Thank you!

39. Houses and fragmentation:  Both fragmentation and housing development had equal and strong effects on avian richness  Effects differed by guild and ecoregion  E.g., in the West houses were positively correlated with richness, but negatively in East  Pidgeon et al., 2007, Ecol. Appl., 17:1989-2010  Lepczyk et al., 2008, Cons. Bio., 22:405-416 Disturbance and bird biodiversity

40. Grassland specialists average

41. Neotropical migrants average