Competing Vegetation Structure Indices for Estimating Spatial Constrains in Carabid Abundance Patterns in Chinese Grasslands Reveal Complex Scale and Habitat Patterns
by
Noelline Tsafack 1,*
, Simone Fattorini 2,*, Camila Benavides Frias 3, Yingzhong Xie 1, Xinpu Wang 1 and François Rebaudo 3
Noelline Tsafack 1,*, Simone Fattorini 2,*, Camila Benavides Frias 3, Yingzhong Xie 1, Xinpu Wang 1 and François Rebaudo 3
1
School of Agriculture, Ningxia University, 489 Helanshan West Road, Yinchuan 750021, China
2
Department of Life, Health and Environmental Sciences, University of L’Aquila, 67100 L’Aquila, Italy
3
Unité Mixte de Recherche (UMR), Evolution Genome Behaviour Ecology (EGCE), French National Research Institute for Development (IRD), French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), Paris-Saclay University, 91190 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Insects 2020, 11(4), 249; https://doi.org/10.3390/insects11040249
Received: 12 March 2020 / Revised: 12 April 2020 / Accepted: 13 April 2020 / Published: 16 April 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Insects-Environment Interaction)
Carabid communities are influenced by landscape features. Chinese steppes are subject to increasing desertification processes that are changing land-cover characteristics with negative impacts on insect communities. Despite those warnings, how land-cover characteristics influence carabid communities in steppe ecosystems remains unknown. The aim of this study is to investigate how landscape characteristics drive carabid abundance in different steppes (desert, typical, and meadow steppes) at different spatial scales. Carabid abundances were estimated using pitfall traps. Various landscape indices were derived from Landsat 8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) images. Indices expressing moisture and productivity were, in general, those with the highest correlations. Different indices capture landscape aspects that influence carabid abundance at different scales, in which the patchiness of desert vegetation plays a major role. Carabid abundance correlations with landscape characteristics rely on the type of grassland, on the vegetation index, and on the scale considered. Proper scales and indices are steppe type-specific, highlighting the need of considering various scales and indices to explain species abundances from remotely sensed data.
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Keywords:
steppes; landscape ecology; vegetation index; normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI); modified normalized difference water index (MNDWI); Gao’s normalized difference water index (NDWI2); tasseled-cap indices; soil-adjusted total vegetation index (SATVI)
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MDPI and ACS Style
Tsafack, N.; Fattorini, S.; Benavides Frias, C.; Xie, Y.; Wang, X.; Rebaudo, F. Competing Vegetation Structure Indices for Estimating Spatial Constrains in Carabid Abundance Patterns in Chinese Grasslands Reveal Complex Scale and Habitat Patterns. Insects 2020, 11, 249.
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