Researchers use satellites to analyze global reef biodiversity

Researchers used satellites orbiting Earth to map coral reef biodiversity globally to show that areas with high habitat diversity also support high species diversity. This new satellite mapping technique can help guide future efforts to identify and protect high-biodiversity reefs, according to the research team from the University’s Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Sciences of Miami who conducted the study.

“As remote sensing technology becomes more advanced and we continue to use satellite imagery to map ecological habitats, we need to understand the biological and ecological significance of these products,” said Sam Purkis, professor and chair of the department. of marine geosciences of Rosenstiel. School and lead author of the study. “We have shown that these maps can be used as an indicator of biodiversity and therefore can be used to guide the protection and restoration of ecosystems.”

The conventional approach of conducting scuba diving surveys to measure coral reef biodiversity is time-consuming and expensive. The research team therefore sought a new method using remote sensing to produce habitat maps on a global scale.

To conduct the study, they extracted the diversity of reef fish and coral species measured by divers from the global Khaled bin Reef Expedition scuba diving survey dataset. Sultan Living Oceans Foundation (KSLOF) across the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans. . KSLOF maps cover about a quarter of Earth’s shallow-water tropical coral reefs. Purkis is the foundation’s chief scientist.

The scientists then used these maps to check the complexity of the configuration of seafloor habitats, which they showed was correlated with the species diversity of the organisms that inhabited them. This relationship extends across the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans and, according to scientists, can therefore be used as an indicator of reef biodiversity.

“We show how the biodiversity of these ecosystems can be recovered from satellite maps of the seafloor,” said doctoral student Anna Bakker. student in the Department of Marine Geosciences at the Rosenstiel School and lead author of the study. “This discovery provides the opportunity to assess reef biodiversity, on a global scale, from orbit.”

The results of this study can contribute to marine spatial planning and the designation of marine protected areas to protect reefs with high biodiversity, according to the researchers.

The study, titled “Remotely detected habitat diversity predicts species diversity on coral reefs,” was published in the journal Remote sensing of the environment. Study authors also include: Arthur Gleason of the University of Miami Department of Physics, Alexandra Dempsey of the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and Helen Fox and Rebecca Green of the Coral Reef Alliance.