Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
---|---|---|---|---|
8845054 | Ecological Indicators | 2018 | 6 Pages |
Abstract
Species composition plays a critical role in environmental conservation, ecosystem functioning and health of grasslands. However, there is no efficient and long-term monitoring method. In this study, we developed a practical method with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and tested it along a range of grazing intensities in alpine meadow of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. We found that 1) there were significant linear relationships of widely used species composition indices between this and traditional methods (Pâ¯<â¯0.01); 2) along increasing grazing density, there were similar tendencies of these indices estimated by the two methods; 3) the new method was more representative than the traditional one though some specific species were difficult to identify. We concluded that this method is suitable for long-term repeated monitoring of grassland species composition, which will be useful for grassland conservation and management.
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Authors
Yi Sun, Shuhua Yi, Fujiang Hou,