Remote sensing applications for understanding pyrodiversity-biodiversity relationships

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Fire is an important ecological and evolutionary force shaping the composition and configuration of fire prone terrestrial ecosystems. The pyrodiversity-biodiversity hypothesis suggests regions with greater spatial and temporal variation in fire occurrence, size, and severity (i.e., pyrodiversity) will have greater biodiversity, largely due to niche variation that creates ecological and evolutionary conditions allowing species to co-exist. However, empirical support for the pyrodiversity-biodiversity hypothesis is varied and inference to date has been limited by available data, study design, and scale of analysis. With shifting global fire regimes due to climate change and land use, a better understanding of spatiotemporal variability in pyrodiversity is critically needed to support biodiversity conservation and landscape management. Satellite remote sensing is an essential tool for understanding global fire regimes and biodiversity. However, the spatial and temporal scale of most satellite imagery limits our understanding of fine-scale ecological dynamics, including patterns of succession and species richness in pre- and post-fire landscapes. New remote sensing data streams, including the integration of hyperspectral and light detection and ranging data (i.e., 3D imaging spectroscopy) provide opportunities to understand how vegetation diversity and ecological conditions vary at the patch-level in pre- and post-fire habitat. Combined with wildlife monitoring technologies, including trail cameras, acoustic sensors, and GPS telemetry collars, we can begin to understand how the diversity of communities of vegetation, wildlife, and even the behaviour of individual animals, respond to fire. Pyrodiversity, characterized using remote sensing technologies, and its influence on patterns of biodiversity of both flora and fauna from global to local scales will serve as the focus of multiple HQP-led investigations. In order to understand how species richness, vegetation and wildlife communities, and individual animals respond to habitat conditions and niche variation created by fire, the investigations will be multi-disciplinary and collaborative, providing HQP with hands-on experience in data collection and management, as well as analytical approaches in the lab and field that are directly transferrable to any employment sector. The research proposed contributes to my long-term research program goal of understanding how wildlife populations and individuals respond and adapt to humans and changing environmental conditions. Our group will emerge with a better understanding of the drivers or pyrodiversity and how fire influences habitat and biodiversity. In doing so, we aim to provide new insight to ecological and evolutionary theory related to fire and biodiversity, as well as how species are likely to respond to changing fire regimes that can inform biodiversity conservation and landscape management to the benefit of all Canadians.