TY  - JOUR
A1  - Klaus, Valentin H.
A1  - Kleinebecker, Till
A1  - Boch, Steffen
A1  - Müller, Jörg
A1  - Socher, Stephanie A.
A1  - Prati, Daniel
A1  - Fischer, Markus
A1  - Hoelzel, Norbert
T1  - NIRS meets Ellenberg's indicator values prediction of moisture and nitrogen values of agricultural grassland vegetation by means of near-infrared spectral characteristics
JF  - Ecological indicators : integrating monitoring, assessment and management
N2  - Ellenberg indicator values are widely used ecological tools to elucidate relationships between vegetation and environment in ecological research and environmental planning. However, they are mainly deduced from expert knowledge on plant species and are thus subject of ongoing discussion. We researched if Ellenberg indicator values can be directly extracted from the vegetation biomass itself. Mean Ellenberg "moisture" (mF) and "nitrogen" (mN) values of 141 grassland plots were related to nutrient concentrations, fibre fractions and spectral information of the aboveground biomass. We developed calibration models for the prediction of mF and mN using spectral characteristics of biomass samples with near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS). Prediction goodness was evaluated with internal cross-validations and with an external validation data set. NIRS could accurately predict Ellenberg mN, and with less accuracy Ellenberg mF. Predictions were not more precise for cover-weighted Ellenberg values compared with un-weighted values. Both Ellenberg mN and mF showed significant and strong correlations with some of the nutrient and fibre concentrations in the biomass. Against expectations, Ellenberg mN was more closely related to phosphorus than to nitrogen concentrations, suggesting that this value rather indicates productivity than solely nitrogen. To our knowledge we showed for the first time that mean Ellenberg indicator values could be directly predicted from the aboveground biomass, which underlines the usefulness of the NIRS technology for ecological studies, especially in grasslands ecosystems.
KW  - Biodiversity exploratories
KW  - Cover-weighting
KW  - Near-infrared reflectance spectroscopy (NIRS)
KW  - Nitrogen
KW  - Nutrient concentrations
KW  - Phosphorus
Y1  - 2012
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2011.07.016
SN  - 1470-160X
VL  - 14
IS  - 1
SP  - 82
EP  - 86
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - Amsterdam
ER  -