Woody fractional cover in Kruger National Park, South Africa: Remote sensing-based maps and ecological insights

Ecosystem Function in Savannas: Measurement and Modeling at Landscape to Global Scales

Volumn , Issue , 2010, Pages 219-237

  Bucini, Gabriela ^a   Hanan, Niall P ^a   Boone, Randall B ^a   Smit, Izak P J ^b   Saatchi, Sassan S ^c   Lefsky, Michael A ^a   Asner, Gregory P ^d,e  

^a Department of Environmental and Radiological Health Sciences   (United States)

^b SOUTH AFRICAN NATIONAL PARKS   (South Africa)

^c CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY   (United States)

^d GEOPHYSICAL LABORATORY   (United States)

^e STANFORD UNIVERSITY   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 85043468392     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
DOI: 10.1201/b10275     Document Type: Chapter

References (42)

1. Akaike, H. 1973. Information theory as an extension of the maximum likelihood principle. Second International Symposium on Information Theory, Akademiai Kiado, Budapest.
2. Archibald, S., D. P. Roy, B. W. van Wilgen, and R. J. Scholes. 2009. What limits fire? An examination of drivers of burnt area in Southern Africa. Global Change Biology 15, 613-630.
3. Asner, G. P., D. E. Knapp, T. Kennedy-Bowdoin, et al. 2007. Carnegie Airborne Observatory: In-flight fusion of hyperspectral imaging and waveform light detection and ranging (wLiDAR) for three-dimensional studies of ecosystems. Journal of Applied Remote Sensing 1, 21
4. Asner, G. P., S. R. Levick, T. Kennedy-Bowdoin, et al. 2009. Large-scale impacts of herbivores on the structural diversity of African Savannas. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106, 4947-4952.
5. Biggs, R., H. C. Biggs, T. T. Dunne, N. Govender, and A. L. F. Potgieter. 2003. Experimental burn plot trial in the Kruger National Park: History, experimental design and suggestions for data analysis. Koedoe 46, 1-15.
6. Boone, R. B. and W. B. Krohn. 2000. Partitioning sources of variation in vertebrate species richness. Journal of Biogeography 27, 457-470.
7. Borcard, D., P. Legendre, and P. Drapeau. 1992. Partialling out the Spatial Component of Ecological Variation. Ecology 73, 1045-1055.
8. Breiman, L. 2001. Random forests. Machine Learning 45, 5-32.
9. Breiman, L., J. Friedman, R. Olshen, and C. Stone. 1984. Classification and Regression Trees. Wadsworth, Belmont, California.
10. Bucini, G. and N. P. Hanan. 2007. A continental-scale analysis of tree cover in African Savannas. Global Ecology and Biogeography 16, 593-605.
11. De’Ath, G. and K. E. Frabricius. 2000. Classification and regression trees: A powerful yet simple technique for ecological data analysis. Ecology 81, 3178-3192.
12. Durden, S. L., J. J. van Zyl, and H. A. Zebker. 1989. Modeling and observation of the radar polarization signature of forested areas. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 27, 290-301.
13. Eckhardt, H. C., B. W. van Wilgen, and H. C. Biggs. 2000. Trends in woody vegetation cover in the Kruger National Park, South Africa, between 1940 and 1998. African Journal of Ecology 38, 108-115.
14. Efron, B. and R. J. Tibshirani. 1993. An Introduction to the Bootstrap. Chapman & Hall/CRC, New York and London.
15. Gertenbach, W. P. D. 1983. Landscapes of the Kruger National Park. Koedoe 26, 9-121.
16. Glenn, E. P., A. R. Huete, P. L. Nagler, and S. G. Nelson. 2008. Relationship between remotely-sensed vegetation indices, canopy attributes and plant physiological processes: What vegetation indices can and cannot tell us about the landscape. Sensors 8, 2136-2160.
17. Groen, T. A., F. van Langevelde, C. de Vijver, N. Govender, and H. H. T. Prins. 2008. Soil clay content and fire frequency affect clustering in trees in South African Savannas. Journal of Tropical Ecology 24, 269-279.
18. Gromping, U. 2006. Relative importance for linear regression in R: The package relaimpo. Journal of Statistical Software 17, 1-27.
19. Guldemond, R. and R. Van Aarde. 2008. A meta-analysis of the impact of African elephants on Savanna vegetation. Journal of Wildlife Management 72, 892-899.
20. Huete, A. R. 1988. A Soil-Adjusted Vegetation Index (SAVI). Remote Sensing of Environment 25, 295-309.
21. Ko, D., N. Bristow, D. Greenwood, and P. Weisberg. 2009. Canopy cover estimation in semiarid woodlands: Comparison of field-based and remote sensing methods. Forest Science 55, 132-141.
22. Korhonen, L., K. T. Korhonen, M. Rautiainen, and P. Stenberg. 2006. Estimation of forest canopy cover: A comparison of field measurement techniques. Silva Fennica 40, 577-588.
23. Lemmon, P. E. 1956. A spherical densiometer for estimating forest overstory density. Forest Science 2, 314-320.
24. Lucas, R. M., A. C. Lee, and M. L. Williams. 2006. Enhanced simulation of radar backscatter from forests using LiDAR and optical data. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 44, 2736-2754.
25. Ogle, K. and J. F. Reynolds. 2004. Plant responses to precipitation in desert ecosystems:Integrating functional types, pulses, thresholds, and delays. Oecologia 141, 282-294.
26. Qi, J., A. Chehbouni, A. R. Huete, Y. H. Kerr, and S. Sorooshian. 1994. A modified soil adjusted vegetation index. Remote Sensing of Environment 48, 119-126.
27. Rietkerk, M., F. vandenBosch, and J. vandeKoppel. 1997. Site-specific properties and irreversible vegetation changes in semi-arid grazing systems. Oikos 80, 241-252.
28. Rogers, K. H. 2003. Adopting a heterogeneity paradigm: Implications for management of protected Savannas. In The Kruger Experience: Ecology and Management of Savanna Heterogeneity, eds. J. T. du Toit, K. H. Rogers, and H. C. Biggs, Island Press, Washington, pp. 41-58.
29. Saatchi, S., K. Halligan, D. G. Despain, and R. L. Crabtree. 2007. Estimation of forest fuel load from radar remote sensing. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 45, 1726-1740.
30. Sankaran, M., N. P. Hanan, R. J. Scholes, et al. 2005. Determinants of woody cover in African Savannas. Nature 438, 846-849.
31. Sankaran, M., J. Ratnam, and N. Hanan. 2008. Woody cover in African Savannas: The role of resources, fire and herbivory. Global Ecology and Biogeography 17, 236-245.
32. Santos, J. R., M. S. P. Lacruz, L. S. Araujo, and M. Keil. 2002. Savanna and tropical rainforest biomass estimation and spatialization using JERS-1 data. International Journal of Remote Sensing 23, 1217-1229.
33. Scholes, R. J. and S. R. Archer. 1997. Tree-grass interactions in Savannas. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 28, 517-544.
34. Shannon, G., D. J. Druce, B. R. Page, H. C. Eckhardt, R. Grant, and R. Slotow. 2008. The utilization of large Savanna trees by elephant in southern Kruger National Park. Journal of Tropical Ecology 24, 281-289.
35. Spanner, M. A., L. L. Pierce, D. L. Peterson, and S. W. Running. 1990. Remote-sensing of temperate coniferous forest leaf-area index-the influence of canopy closure, understory vegetation and background reflectance. International Journal of Remote Sensing 11, 95-111.
36. van Zyl, J. J. 1993. The effect of topography on radar scattering from vegetated areas. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing 31, 153-160.
37. Venter, F. J. 1990. A classification of land for management planning in the Kruger National Park. PhD dissertation. University of South Africa.
38. Venter, F. J., R. J. Naiman, H. C. Biggs, and D. J. Pienaar. 2008. The evolution of conservation management philosophy: Science, environmental change and social adjustments in Kruger National Park. Ecosystems 11, 173-192.
39. Venter, F. J., R. J. Scholes, and H. C. Eckhardt. 2003. The abiotic template and its associated vegetation pattern. The Kruger Experience: Ecology and Management of Savanna Heterogeneity. eds. J. T. du Toit, Rogers, K. H. and Biggs H. C. Island Press, Washington, pp. 83-129.
40. Wiegand, K., D. Saitz, and D. Ward. 2006. A patch-dynamics approach to Savanna dynamics and woody plant encroachment-Insights from an arid Savanna. Perspectives in Plant Ecology Evolution and Systematics 7, 229-242.
41. Xu, B., P. Gong, and R. L. Pu. 2003. Crown closure estimation of oak Savannah in a dry season with Landsat TM imagery: Comparison of various indices through correlation analysis. International Journal of Remote Sensing 24, 1811-1822.
42. Yang, J. L. and S. D. Prince. 1997. A theoretical assessment of the relation between woody canopy cover and red reflectance. Remote Sensing of Environment 59, 428-439.