Remote Sensing for Ecology
Animals can shape the structure and function of ecosystems. For example, herbivores graze on plants and disperse seeds, termites build tall mounds and concentrate nutrients in soil, and elephants prune and knock down tall trees. We highlight the large-scale impacts that animals, in combination with abiotic drivers such as fire and climate, have on ecosystems by using high-resolution remote sensing high-resolution remote sensing.
We fly Unoccupied Aerial Vehicles (UAV), attached with a variety of state-of-the-art cameras and sensors, to survey natural landscapes and ecological experimental sites. By obtaining and analyzing highly detailed maps of the 3-D structure, surface temperature, and color of these environments, we can measure the impacts that animals and plants have on the structure of the landscape.
Surveying the landscape at Mpala Research Centre, Kenya, with UAV remote sensing.
We survey landscapes using a set of remote sensing instruments that were integrated together by Phoenix Lidar Systems into a “sensor package” for easy deployment onto UAVs and planes. We call this package of highly-advanced sensors, HALO - the Harvard Animal Landscape Observatory.
In this section, we outline the 3 sensors on HALO (a lidar instrument and the thermal and RGB cameras), explaining how we use them to better understand how animals shape the structures and functions of landscapes.
A side-view of the HALO sensor package, ready to be mounted on a UAV.