What
BIOSENS is expected to increase our ability to understand and predict the biodiversity, ecosystem and societal consequences of global change. It provides the basis for monitoring biodiversity dynamics and for creating early warning systems for biodiversity and global change, and thus the fundament for timely mitigation of the effects.
Why
Sensing biodiversity change and its drivers from space has the potential to provide ground-breaking new insight on the fundamental ecological processes that structure life on our planet. Utilizing drones and novel sensor technologies BIOSENS aims at understanding drivers of biodiversity dynamics by linking information on plant diversity and environmental change at ultra-high spectral, structural, spatial, and temporal resolution.
How
BIOSENS combines the newest hyperspectral and LiDAR sensor technology for drones with a detailed assessment of temporal and spatial changes in local diversity and ecological parameters. Specifically, repeated drone-flights will be conducted across a recently established grassland experiment with controlled levels of plant diversity, as well as across a natural grassland with substantial variation in plant diversity, vegetation structure and ecological factors. Simultaneously, highly detailed and spatially explicit information on plant diversity, structure, and function will be measured with traditional ecological methods and novel hand-held sensors.