Identification

Title

Remotely sensed spectral variability predicts reef fish diversity

Abstract

<div class="Abstracts u-font-serif" style="--sd-ui-line-height:calc(1em + 10px);box-sizing:border-box;font-family:ElsevierGulliver, Georgia, &quot;Times New Roman&quot;, Times, STIXGeneral, &quot;Cambria Math&quot;, &quot;Lucida Sans Unicode&quot;, &quot;Microsoft Sans Serif&quot;, &quot;Segoe UI Symbol&quot;, &quot;Arial Unicode MS&quot;, serif, sans-serif !important;line-height:var(--sd-ui-line-height);margin:0px;padding:0px;" id="abstracts"><div class="abstract author" style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px 0px 8px;padding:0px;" id="ab010"><div style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px;padding:0px;" id="as010"><div class="u-margin-s-bottom" style="box-sizing:border-box;margin-bottom:16px !important;margin-left:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-top:0px;padding:0px;" id="sp0010">In terrestrial landscapes, the spectral variability hypothesis (SVH) enables estimation of species diversity from satellite data, thereby allowing biodiversity assessments to be upscaled. Whether the SVH works in the marine realm is an open question. To answer it, we tested the ability of this hypothesis to retrieve coral reef fish biodiversity from two remote sensing platforms on a global transect of reef sites. From orbit, we trialed the multispectral and panchromatic bands of WorldView-2 (WV-2) which have a spatial resolution of 2.5 and 0.5&nbsp;m, respectively. At 100 times finer resolution, we repeated the experiment using unpiloted aerial vehicle (UAV) data. Encouragingly, the SVH evidently works as well in water as has been reported on land. Spectral variability was positively correlated with fish diversity for all sensors, though the area in which the variability was computed (window size) was important. The strongest relationship between spectral variability and fish biodiversity (R = 0.48) was returned using UAV imagery corrected for surface artifacts via fluid lensing. Splitting fish into herbivores, corallivores, and piscivores revealed that different feeding strategies correlate to spectral variability at different scales. Based on our results, we contend that remote sensing data are underutilized when used to simply map benthic habitat. Spectral variation can clearly serve as a proxy for <em style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px;padding:0px;">in situ</em> reef biodiversity.</div></div></div></div><div style="box-sizing:border-box;margin:0px;padding:0px;" id="reading-assistant-main-body-section">&nbsp;</div><ul class="issue-navigation u-margin-s-bottom u-bg-grey1" style="background-color:rgb(245, 245, 245) !important;box-sizing:border-box;font-size:16px;line-height:24px;list-style:none;margin-bottom:16px !important;margin-left:0px;margin-right:0px;margin-top:0px;overflow:hidden;padding:0px;" id="issue-navigation"><li class="previous move-left u-padding-s-ver u-padding-s-left" style="box-sizing:border-box;float:left;left:0px;margin:0px;padding:16px !important 0px 16px;"><a class="button-alternative button-alternative-tertiary u-display-flex button-alternative-icon-left" style="--sd-ui-button-alt-border-bottom-colour-hover:#eb6500;--sd-ui-button-alt-border-bottom-colour:transparent;--sd-ui-button-alt-border-bottom-width:2px;--sd-ui-button-alt-colour-focus:#eb6500;--sd-ui-button-alt-colour:#1f1f1f;--sd-ui-button-alt-cursor:pointer;--sd-ui-button-alt-font-size:1em;--sd-ui-button-alt-gap:calc(0.5em - 2px);--sd-ui-button-alt-icon-background-colour-hover:transparent;--sd-ui-button-alt-icon-background-colour:transparent;--sd-ui-button-alt-icon-border-colour-hover:#eb6500;--sd-ui-button-alt-icon-border-colour:#1f1f1f;--sd-ui-button-alt-icon-external-link-size:0.625rem;--sd-ui-button-alt-icon-fill-hover:#1f1f1f;--sd-ui-button-alt-icon-fill:#1f1f1f;--sd-ui-button-alt-icon-padding:0.5rem;--sd-ui-button-alt-icon-size:2.5rem;--sd-ui-button-alt-min-width:5.5rem;-webkit-box-align:baseline;align-items:baseline;background-color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 0);border-style:none;box-sizing:border-box;color:var(--sd-ui-button-alt-colour);cursor:var(--sd-ui-button-alt-cursor);display:flex !important;font-family:inherit;font-size:var(--sd-ui-button-alt-font-size);gap:var(--sd-ui-button-alt-gap);line-height:var(--sd-ui-line-height);margin:0px;min-width:var(--sd-ui-button-alt-min-width);padding:0px;text-decoration:none;user-select:text;word-break:break-word;" href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X24013165"><svg class="icon icon-navigate-left" style="-webkit-text-stroke-width:0px;color:rgb(31, 31, 31);font-family:ElsevierSans, Arial, Helvetica, Roboto, &quot;Lucida Sans Unicode&quot;, &quot;Microsoft Sans Serif&quot;, &quot;Segoe UI Symbol&quot;, STIXGeneral, &quot;Cambria Math&quot;, &quot;Arial Unicode MS&quot;, sans-serif;font-size:16px;font-style:normal;font-variant-caps:normal;font-variant-ligatures:normal;font-weight:400;letter-spacing:normal;orphans:2;text-align:left;text-decoration-color:initial;text-decoration-style:initial;text-decoration-thickness:initial;text-indent:0px;text-transform:none;white-space:normal;widows:2;word-spacing:0px;" focusable="false" viewbox="0 0 54 128" height="20"><path d="M1 61l45-45 7 7-38 38 38 38-7 7z"></path></svg></a><br>&nbsp;</li></ul>

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7zg6xj8

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2024-12-01T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

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Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

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Use constraints

Copyright author(s). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata date

2025-07-10T19:56:23.398997

Metadata language

eng; USA