Spatio-temporal analysis of flowering using LiDAR topography

doi:10.1007/s11442-017-1364-x

Abstract

Abstract:

Spatio-temporal patterns of flowering in forest ecosystems are hard to quantify and monitor. The objectives of this study were to investigate spatio-temporal patterns (e.g. soils, simple slope classes, slope aspect, and flow accumulation) of flowering around Lake Issaqueena, South Carolina (SC, USA) using plant-flowering database collected with GPS- enabled camera (stored in Picasa 3 web albums and project website) on a monthly basis in 2012 and LiDAR-based topography. Pacolet fine sandy loam had the most flowering plants, followed by Madison sandy loam, both dominant soil types around the lake. Most flowering plants were on moderately steep (17%-30%) and gently sloping (4%-8%) slopes. Most flowering plants were on west (247.5°-292.5°), southwest (202.5°-247.5°), and northwest (292.5°-337.5°) aspects. Most flowering plants were associated with minimum and maximum flows within the landscape. Chi-square tests indicated differences in the distributions of the proportions of flowering plants were significant by soil type, slope, aspect, and flow accumulation for each month (February-November), for all months (overall), and across months. The Chi-square test on area-normalized data indicated significant differences for all months and individual differences by each month with some months not statistically significant. Cluster analysis on flowering counts for nine plant families with the most flowering counts indicated no unique separation by cluster, but implied that the majority of these families were flowering on strongly sloping (9%-16%) slopes, on southwest (202.5°-247.5°) aspects, and low flow accumulation (0-200). Presented methodology can serve as a template for future efforts to quantify spatio-temporal patterns of flowering and other phenological events.

Key words: aspect, flow accumulation, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), phenology, soils

Samantha HART, Elena MIKHAILOVA, Christopher POST, Patrick McMILLAN, Julia SHARP, William BRIDGES. Spatio-temporal analysis of flowering using
LiDAR topography[J].Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2017, 27(1): 62-78.

Figures/Tables 14

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Table 1

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Table 7

Landscape characteristics associated with the top nine families in terms of flowering counts around Lake Issaqueena, SC in 2012"

Family		Slope aspect		Slope		Flow accumulation
Family	n	Mean	St dev.	Mean	St dev.	Mean	St dev.
Overall
Asteraceae	533	215.3	80.7	16	8	453	3392
Campanulaceae	97	180.0	97.8	14	10	223	777
Caryophyllaceae	82	229.7	93.5	19	8	448	1617
Clusiaceae	84	218.3	86.9	13	8	218	737
Ericaceae	105	249.1	80.6	18	11	293	1229
Fabaceae	304	183.6	82.7	16	8	758	6260
Lamiaceae	101	231.6	61.3	17	8	97	510
Liliaceae	132	243.4	94.9	17	8	79	276
Melastomataceae	115	192.7	78.5	11	8	2816	7502
February
Asteraceae	2	167.0	0.0	17	0	1	0
March
Asteraceae	52	212.9	88.9	18	9	103	257
Caryophyllaceae	26	210.6	83.7	18	8	104	313
Ericaceae	21	192.9	119.0	11	6	333	1003
Fabaceae	22	183.4	110.3	16	9	229	725
Lamiaceae	4	222.4	2.2	15	3	9	0
Liliaceae	36	222.8	116.0	16	6	46	185
April
Asteraceae	61	270.8	42.0	21	8	287	1395
Caryophyllaceae	10	265.9	33.2	17	7	1060	2308
Ericaceae	66	274.4	52.1	20	10	341	1443
Fabaceae	7	275.3	60.3	18	10	142	247
Lamiaceae	12	257.6	87.7	17	9	417	1393
Liliaceae	52	238.1	108.1	13	7	50	161
May
Asteraceae	64	224.4	80.8	13	8	231	695
Campanulaceae	8	125.2	21.3	27	4	9	4
Caryophyllaceae	12	309.3	34.6	22	10	950	3155
Ericaceae	7	257.1	19.4	23	7	5	7
Fabaceae	52	175.8	73.7	17	7	198	719
Lamiaceae	32	249.1	45.5	17	9	81	257
Liliaceae	8	283.4	38.2	18	8	313	378
Melastomataceae	6	123.4	36.1	7	8	2253	3092
June
Asteraceae	62	222.7	78.9	17	7	146	516
Campanulaceae	21	227.7	101.4	15	11	52	102
Caryophyllaceae	4	60.5	85.5	27	2	1	1
Clusiaceae	14	191.0	77.6	12	11	21	17
Ericaceae	3	181.7	138.4	25	3	38	9
Fabaceae	46	218.4	76.8	16	7	163	699
Lamiaceae	9	231.6	71.1	17	8	122	336
Liliaceae	16	244.5	43.4	20	10	6	6
Melastomataceae	28	215.6	79.0	11	7	5330	12178
July
Asteraceae	121	194.3	76.2	17	7	237	1541
Campanulaceae	11	163.4	135.8	9	5	3	2
Caryophyllaceae	22	232.0	101.2	18	7	417	1321
Clusiaceae	49	221.2	88.3	14	7	358	944
Ericaceae	5	244.8	37.0	18	15	11	4
Fabaceae	78	192.9	80.9	15	8	199	726
Lamiaceae	27	219.6	58.2	20	8	18	54
Liliaceae	8	264.4	49.2	30	3	6	5
Melastomataceae	52	187.6	81.7	11	9	2094	5130
August
Asteraceae	84	203.4	79.6	13	8	610	2147
Campanulaceae	43	161.2	90.0	13	9	419	1125
Caryophyllaceae	7	195.5	91.0	18	9	405	844
Clusiaceae	21	229.6	89.9	13	7	21	40
Fabaceae	89	162.0	78.0	14	8	2145	11447
Lamiaceae	16	199.1	62.8	13	6	40	93
Liliaceae	12	286.0	16.2	18	8	295	692
Melastomataceae	29	193.8	71.4	11	8	1802	5295
September
Asteraceae	36	195.1	92.5	14	8	1219	4083
Campanulaceae	9	221.6	75.1	14	5	8	7
Caryophyllaceae	1	273.7	NA	8	NA	39	NA
Fabaceae	8	122.3	15.7	26	4	12	8
Lamiaceae	1	236.5	NA	18	NA	1	NA
October
Asteraceae	37	224.3	72.0	17	9	1912	11277
Campanulaceae	5	190.6	91.4	22	9	471	420
Ericaceae	2	97.4	5.8	0	0	528	152
Fabaceae	2	104.9	31.6	11	9	2	2

Table 7

Table 8

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Data layer	Source	Coordinate system	Spatial resolution	Date
DEM (LiDAR)	Pickens County GIS	NAD State Plane 1983 SC	3.048 m	2011
Lake Polygon	NHD USGS	NAD State Plane 1983 SC	na	2013
NAIP Aerial Photo	USDA-NRCS	NAD State Plane 1983 SC	1 m	2013
SSURGO Soils Data	USDA-NRCS	Geographic	na	na