Internnual variabilty of NDVI and bird species diversity in Kenya

Boniface O. Oindo*, Rolf A. de By, Andrew K. Skidmore

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

10 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Species richness, or simply the number of species in a given area, is commonly used as an important indicator of biological diversity. Spatial variability in species richness has been postulated to depend upon environmental factors such as climate and climatic variability, which in turn may affect net primary productivity. The Advanced very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) derived Normalized Difference Vegetation index (NDVI) has been shown to be correlated with climatic variables including rainfall, actual evapotranspiration and net primary productivity. To determine factors favoring high species richness, we examined the relationship between interannual NDVI variables and species richness of birds at a quarter degree scale (55 × 55 km). Results revealed a strong positive correlation between species richness and maximum average NDVI. Conversely, species richness showed negative correlation with standard deviation of maximum NDVI and the coefficient of variation. Though these relationships are indirect, they apparently operate through the green vegetation cover. Understanding such relationships can help in mapping and monitoring biological diversity, as well as in estimating changes in species richness in response to global climatic change.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)172-180
Number of pages9
JournalInternational Journal of Applied Earth Observation and Geoinformation
Volume2
Issue number3-4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2000
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • AVHRR-NDVI
  • birds
  • Kenya
  • mapping
  • species richness
  • time series analysis

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