Anna L. Crofts
Projet
Predicting plant community and belowground properties in Québec’s northern temperate forests using aerial hyperspectral imageryEcosystems are experiencing ever-increasing human pressures, where biodiversity and the ecosystem services it provides are being altered at fast rates and across broad spatial extents. Our capacity to assess and monitor these changes is dependent on our ability to detect biodiversity and associated services. Remote-sensing can be used to overcome the inherent sparseness of field biodiversity inventories, with hyperspectral imaging emerging as a leading method for plant biodiversity assessment. Hyperspectral imaging quantifies the unique ways, mostly invisible to the human eye, that plants interact with incoming light – herein termed spectral signals. Variation in spectral signals reflect variation in plant functional traits and, therefore, capture differences in species identity and provide a mechanism to link to ecosystem services that traits have control over. In conjunction with the Canadian Airborne Biodiversity Observatory, my research aims to develop a deeper understanding of plant spectra and to apply hyperspectral imaging to further our understanding of the causes and consequences of canopy tree species across a biogeographical gradient spanning the temperate to boreal forest biome in southern Québec. I first ask can we quantify canopy tree composition and diversity from airborne hyperspectral imagery (Q1)? Expanding on the relationships examined in Q1, I then ask what environmental variables explain spatial patterns in canopy tree composition and diversity and are these patterns scale dependent (Q2)? Finally, I will incorporate plant spectra into biodiversity-ecosystem function relationships and ask can airborne hyperspectral imagery predict forest soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks (Q3)?
Mots-clés
Forest biodiversity, Hyperspectral imagery, Canopy trees, community ecology, Spectral diversity, Soil Organic CarbonPublications
1- Changes in the understory plant community and ecosystem properties along a shrub density gradientCrofts, Anna L., Dennise O. Drury, Jennie R. McLaren
2018 Arctic Science
2- Plant biomass, rather than species composition, determines ecosystem properties: Results from a long‐term graminoid removal experiment in a northern Canadian grassland
Melendez Gonzalez, Mayra, Anna L. Crofts, Jennie R. McLaren,
2019 Journal of Ecology
3- Biotic filtering of northern temperate tree seedling emergence in beyond‐range field experiments
Evans, Piers, Anna L. Crofts, Carissa D. Brown
2020 Ecosphere
4- The importance of biotic filtering on boreal conifer recruitment at alpine treeline
Crofts, Anna L., Carissa D. Brown
2020 Ecography
5- Plant Responses to Climate Change and an Elevational Gradient in Mont Mégantic National Park, Québec, Canada
Vellend, Mark, Mélanie Béhé, Alexis Carteron, Anna L. Crofts, Victor Danneyrolles, Hasanki T. Gamhewa, Ming Ni, Christina L. Rinas, David A. Watts
2021 Northeastern Naturalist
6- Predicting leaf traits across functional groups using reflectance spectroscopy
Kothari, Shan, Rosalie Beauchamp‐Rioux, Florence Blanchard, Anna L. Crofts, Alizée Girard, Xavier Guilbeault‐Mayers, Paul W. Hacker, Juliana Pardo, Anna K. Schweiger, Sabrina Demers‐Thibeault, Anne Bruneau, Nicholas C. Coops, Margaret Kalacska, Mark Vellend, Etienne Laliberté
2023 New Phytologist
7- Remotely sensed carbon content: The role of tree composition and tree diversity
Wallis, Christine I.B., Anna L. Crofts, Deep Inamdar, J. Pablo Arroyo-Mora, Margaret Kalacska, Étienne Laliberté, Mark Vellend
2023 Remote Sensing of Environment
8- Insect seed and cone predation reduces reproductive potential of treeline conifers across northern Canada
Brehaut, Lucas, Katie J. A. Goodwin, Kirsten A. Reid, Anna L. Crofts, Ryan K. Danby, Steven D. Mamet, Carissa D. Brown
2022 Journal of Biogeography
