Dr. Anna Schweiger (Remote Sensing Biodiversity Lab, Dept. of Land Resources and Environmental Sciences, MSU)

10/02/2023

Abstract:  Remote sensing provides the only way to monitor Earth’s biodiversity continuously and repeatedly across large spatial extends. With space agencies investing in sensor fleets specifically designed to monitor and assess biodiversity and ecosystem health, we have now, for the first time, the opportunity to design global monitoring systems to detect early signs of ecosystem change. Given the urgency to halt biodiversity loss, it is more important than ever to understand which aspects of biodiversity satellite systems can track. This requires the integration of remote sensing and ecological theory and methods across spatial, temporal, and biological scales – and the development of new theory and methods. In this talk, I am going to highlight some of the statistical challenges of my work, including developing biodiversity metrics from high-dimensional remote sensing data and deriving behavioral patterns of animals from GPS data.