Facing The Challenges Of Tracking Tropical Phenology At Several Scales In Time And Space

Abstract:

Detect plant responses to environmental changes across tropical systems, especially in the Southern Hemisphere, is an important question in the global agenda, since few studies have addressed trends related to global warming. Traditional on-the-ground direct, manned phenological observations preclude large areas of study, are laborious and time consuming and restricts frequency of observations to large time-intervals (usually monthly). Near-surface remote phenology using digital cameras or phenocams set up at the top of towers have reduced the temporal and labor constraints of on-the-ground human observations, and eliminates the uncertainty of cloud cover, enhancing the resolution of information at individual tree, species, and community scales. Phenocams have reduced considerably manpower, since images are taken sequentially at reduced time-scales. Furthermore, Phenocams have proven to be an important tool for monitoring several species and ecosystems, accurately accessing leaf changes daily or several times a day and the relation to climate drivers but it is still area-limited. Here we propose to apply new technologies to enhance the capabilities near-surface remote phenological observations by integrating at time and space to detect changes on vegetation phenology at various scales, from leaves to ecosystems. Our studies have been carried out in the rupestrian grassland (campos rupestres) a rare, unique Brazilian mountain ecosystem, distinguished by a highly species rich, heterogeneous herbaceous/shrub vegetation and high number of endemic species. We discuss how the combination of cutting-edge technologies collected and framed within a e-science research project has been used to increase our observational capabilities in space by integrating phenology to cutting-edge technologies of environmental and phenology monitoring systems, based on the combination of two near-surface remote phenology monitoring systems: digital and hyperspectral sensors at three scales: direct manned on-the-ground, phenology tower, and remote piloted aerial vehicle (RPAV), increasing our accuracy in time and space to define the relationship between phenology and climate.