The Coexistence of Trees, Shrubs, and Grasses Creates a Complex Picture of Land Surface Phenology in Dry Tropical Ecosystems
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: The use of digital cameras to monitor vegetation phenology (phenocams) has become increasingly common as a means of ground truthing estimates of land surface phenology from Earth observation data. Whilst the relationship between phenocam and Earth Observation-derived indices of land surface phenology has been examined across many temperate land cover types, our understanding of these relationships across the seasonally dry tropics is limited. Here we examined phenological time series derived from coarse-scale MODIS and fine-scale phenocam data across four seasonally dry tropical sites in Brazil to determine their correlation and how phenological metrics derived from these time series differed. While MODIS-derived vegetation indices showed seasonal patterns, we found a poor correlation with vegetation indices from phenocams at sites with a high proportion of evergreen vegetation and a poor correlation of MODIS indices with specific vegetation components. The high spatial and temporal resolution of phenocams allowed us to demonstrate differences in phenological metrics among different components of the vegetation which were obscured in the coarser MODIS data. This study highlights the potential of phenocam data to improve our understanding of complex vegetation leaf phenology and its drivers within mixed tree–shrub–grass systems in the seasonally dry tropics. This could help improve the representation of the savanna, grass, and shrubland biomes within terrestrial biosphere models, and lead to better predictions of the impact of climate change on carbon dynamics via shifting vegetation phenology.
Source: Remote Sensing
DOI: 10.3390/rs17162883
Authors: Stephanie P. Koolen, John L. Godlee, Bruna Alberton, Desirée Marques Ramos, Magna Soelma Beserra Moura, Leonor Patricia C. Morellato, Kyle G. Dexter
Language: English
Subfield: Ecology
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
SDGs: Life on land, Climate action
Open Access status: gold
Estimated APC paid: $3,258
Funders: UK Research and Innovation, Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo, Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior, Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, Fundação de Amparo à Ciência e Tecnologia do Estado de Pernambuco, Natural Environment Research Council
Awards: G1084273744, G1207375514, G1303553784, G1573840242, G1574428227, G1688471733, G1815444233, G1999669099, G2075984022, G207657118, e-phenology: the application of new technologies to monitor plant phenology and track climate changes in the tropics, G2125839111, G2213347639, G2283026704, G2439286915, G2548679587, G2574899526, G2727356898, G2728071105, G2758086526, G2844975575, G2848943611, G2928518798, G2949256118, G3002787469, G3105724818, G3167681085, G3178088265, G3208592872, G3281774918, G3361507243, G3366637771, G3485938435, G3708485972, G3734299174, G3911741327, G4057439184, G4060547516, G4222649031, G4824906414, G4854303502, G4862069750, G4940166306, G497821969, G4998152705, G5007245728, G5008356437, G5079900323, G5237161215, G5319124801, G5465295475, Climate-smart watershed investments in the montane tropics of South America (ClimateWise), G605265628, SECO: Resolving the current and future carbon dynamics of the dry tropics, G6235386238, The impact of climate variability and weather extremes on plant phenology and its implications on biodiversity, G6335466733, G6389032557, G6532182212, G6562704283, G6731579825, G6733969039, G6857327983, G7166679272, NERC-FAPESP PhenoChange: Towards a Dry Tropics Global Phenological Monitoring Network, G7290947920, G752009504, G7682822399, G775774491, G7801787289, G7852138545, G7916997386, G8166464158, G8210287482, Center for Research on Biodiversity Dynamics and Climate Change, G8304336874, G8461365056, Combining new technologies to monitor phenology from leaves to ecosystems, G870418011, G8799611234, G9000382220
OpenAlex ID: W4413311333