Detection of invasive plant species and assessment of their impact on ecosystem properties through remote sensing (DIARS)

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The biodiversity conservation policy of the European Commission includes the development of warning and rapid response systems for biological invasions and urges further investigations of their impacts on ecosystem function and services. However, field-based approaches to mapping invasive species distribution and their impact across landscapes is a time consuming process and potentially subject to observation bias. In practice, impact assessments and management evaluations for invasive plant species are therefore often limited to the analysis of plot-based investigations. A generalization of such field data to landscape and regional scales is necessary in order to fully understand the impact of the invasion, and the effectiveness of management measures.The lack of methods to generate standardized spatially and temporally explicit data on the occurrence and spread of invasive species and especially on their ecosystem impact hampers the development of an operational warning system. It is further detrimental to our capacity to rapidly assess the risks of biological invasion. Remote sensing provides a systematic, objective, and synoptic view on Earth cover. This technique hence offers a great opportunity to target biological invasion and their impact across various spatial and temporal scales.Despite a handful studies that have followed a remote sensing approach, the use of remote sensing for studying biological invasions is largely underexplored and underused by invasion biologists. The objectives of the proposed research are twofold. The first objective is to demonstrate and to characterize the ecosystem impact of invasive plant species through the combined use of field data and remotely sensed data (covering the call's scientific theme T1). The second task is to support monitoring, prediction of spread and risk assessment of invasive plant species as preconditions for management measures and mitigation (T2). The more specific research objectives are to:1 quantify, study and better understand the effects of biological invasion on ecosystem properties, through methods of remote sensing. A special focus will be on the interaction between structural properties and biochemical properties with their implications for ecosystem functioning. The outcomes of this task include assessments of possible changes in carbon uptake induced by invasions;2 Develop and validate an approach to create accurate fine scale baseline maps and predictive models of the distribution of invasive plant species at the landscape scale;3 Assess possibilities and constraints for generalization across ecosystems and invasive species;4 Develop and disseminate a toolbox for the detection, mapping and prediction of the distribution of invasive plant species at the landscape scale, and to assess their impact on ecosystem properties;5 Provide knowledge transfer and a hands-on training for ecologists, conservation biologists, policy makers and landscape managers across.