Novel Tools for Community Based Assessment and Monitoring of Forest Phenology Response to Environmental Variability and Change in the Tropics
[Thesis]
Ramos-Chavez, Jennifer Christine
Lougheed, Vanessa L.
The University of Texas at El Paso
2020
139 p.
Ph.D.
The University of Texas at El Paso
2020
Tropical ecosystems provide a variety of services and resources for global well-being. However, landscapes within this biome are undergoing rapid changes mostly due to anthropogenic activities. These systems are further impacted by current, extreme fluctuations in climate, including climate change and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). With predicted future increase in strength and occurrence of these climate oscillations, these landscapes and their plant communities will be impacted and changed. There is a gap in research and knowledge among tropical Indonesian landscapes in regards to the effects of global climate change at the community level. Therefore, there is an urgent need to understand how tropical plant communities respond to current environmental conditions in an effort to predict how future changes will impact these regions. The overarching focus of this dissertation research is to determine the usefulness of digital repeat photography in monitoring tropical Indonesian plant communities and to understand how these landscapes are behaving in the face of climate change. Specifically, this study aims to: •