DOI: 10.5061/dryad.v41ns1s3p
title: Landscape diversity is correlated with satellite-sensed primary productivity in North America

description: Biodiversity-ecosystem functioning (BEF) experiments have established
 generally positive species richness-productivity relationships in plots of
 single ecosystem types. Here, we analyzed effects of landscape-level
 diversity, measured as the number of land-cover types (different
 ecosystems) per 250 × 250 m, across all of North America. We find that
 this metric is positively related to landscape-wide remotely-sensed
 primary production, and that a higher number of land-cover types also is
 associated with greater temporal stability of productivity, and with
 accelerated 20-year greening trends, in particular at high latitudes.
 Species diversity was correlated with landscape-level productivity, but
 the effect of species diversity and landscape diversity were independent.
 This indicates that diversity-functioning patterns resembling the ones at
 smaller scales also exist at higher levels of biological organization.
description: Data was collected by processing satellite-remote sensing
 products collected with the MODIS instrument, at 250m pixel resolution.
 Land-cover type information was extracted at 30-m spatial resolution from
 the Commission for Environmental Cooperation’s North American Land
 Monitoring System’s map (CEC map, based on Landsat-7 satellite imagery),
 and from the global GlobeLand30 map (GLC map, based on Landsat-5 and China
 Environmental Disaster Alleviation Satellite (HJ-1) imagery). We focused
 on the land covers forest, grassland, shrubland, agriculture, wetland and
 urban, combining the different forest types distinguished in the CEC
 map. Study plots were selected across North America to
 form a quasi-experimental study design with 3x6° latutude x longitude
 tiles that were further divided into 16 ecoregions. Within each tile x
 ecoregion combination, parallel experimental sub-designs spanning
 gradients in land-cover type richness were formed. Plots were selected so
 that land-cover type richness was orthogonal with the average area
 fraction of each land-cover type found at each richness level, and so that
 the richness gradient was orthogonal with important environmental factors
 such as altitude. As productivity metric, we used MODIS
 EVI indices from the Terra satellite (years 2000-2019) and fitted harmonic
 time series to the data based on Fourier synthesis to model annual
 phenology curves.
description: # Landscape diversity is correlated with satellite-sensed primary
 productivity in North America
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.v41ns1s3p](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.v41ns1s3p) ## CHANGELOG | date | change | | ---- | ------ | | 2024-11-13 | files with data shown in figures added (data_for_fig*.csv) | This dataset consists of the following four files: ## ecoregions.csv This files provides a textual description of the ecoregion codes used in the other files | column | content | | --------------- | ------------------------- | | ecoregion | numeric code | | ecoregion\_name | plain text name of region | ## data\_CEC.csv Abbreviations used: * LC = land cover (A=agriculture, F=forest, G=grassland, S=shrubland, U=urban, W=wetland) * EVI = enhanced MODIS vegetation index, normalized for each ecoregion * NE = net biodiversity effect * invCV = inverse coefficient of variation | column | content | | ------------------ | ------------------------------------------- | | id | plot identifier | | ecoregion | ecoregion code | | block | block identifier | | rich | LC type richness | | comp | LC type composition | | A\_frac | area fraction covererd by agricultural land | | F\_frac | area fraction covered by forest | | G\_frac | area fraction covered by grassland | | S\_frac | area fraction covered by shrubland | | U\_frac | area fraction covered by urban land | | W\_frac | area fraction covered by wetland | | alt | altitude, in meters above sea level | | gradN | north-south gradient of plot | | gradE | east-west gradient of plot | | EVIgs | growing-season integrated EVI | | EVImean | growing-season mean of EVI | | EVImax | growing-season maximum of EVI | | NE\_EVIgs | NE for EVIgs | | NE\_EVImean | NE for EVImean | | NE\_EVImax | NE for EVImax | | invCV\_EVIgs | invCV for EVIgs | | invCV\_EVImean | invCV for EVImean | | invCV\_EVImax | invCV for EVImax | | EVIgs\_slope | temporal change in EVIgs | | EVImean\_slope | temporal change in EVImean | | EVImax\_slope | temporal change in EVImax | | NE\_EVIgs\_slope | NE for temporal change in EVIgs | | NE\_EVImean\_slope | NE for temporal change in EVImean | | NE\_EVImax\_slope | NE for temporal change in EVImax | ## data\_GLC.csv Abbreviations used: * LC = land cover (A=agriculture, F=forest, G=grassland, S=shrubland, U=urban, W=wetland) * EVI = enhanced MODIS vegetation index, normalized for each ecoregion * NE = net biodiversity effect * invCV = inverse coefficient of variation | column | content | | -------------- | ------------------------------------------- | | id | plot identifier | | ecoregion | ecoregion code | | block | block identifier | | rich | LC type richness | | comp | LC type composition | | A\_frac | area fraction covererd by agricultural land | | F\_frac | area fraction covered by forest | | G\_frac | area fraction covered by grassland | | S\_frac | area fraction covered by shrubland | | U\_frac | area fraction covered by urband land | | W\_frac | area fraction covered by wetland | | alt | altitude, in meters above sea level | | gradN | north-south gradient of plot | | gradE | east-west gradient of plot | | EVIgs | growing-season integrated EVI | | EVImean | growing-season mean of EVI | | EVImax | growing-season maximum of EVI | | NE\_EVIgs | NE for EVIgs | | NE\_EVImean | NE for EVImean | | NE\_EVImax | NE for EVImax | | invCV\_EVIgs | invCV for EVIgs | | invCV\_EVImean | invCV for EVImean | | invCV\_EVImax | invCV for EVImax | ## data\_\_species\_richness.csv | column | content | | ------ | ---------------------------------------- | | id | plot identified | | sRare | species richness rarefied to 0.1 ha area | ## data\_for\_fig\_3a.csv | column | content | | ------ | ----------------------------- | | LCR | LC type richness | | comp | LC type composition | | EVIgs | growing-season integrated EVI | ## data\_for\_fig\_3b.csv | column | content | | --------- | ------------------------------------ | | LCR | LC type richness | | comp | LC type composition | | NE\_EVIgs | NE for growing-season integrated EVI | ## data\_for\_fig\_3d.csv | column | content | | ------------ | -------------------------------------- | | LCR | LC type richness | | comp | LC type composition | | invCV\_EVIgs | invCV of growing-season integrated EVI | ## data\_for\_fig\_4a.csv | column | content | | --------------------- | ----------------------------------------------- | | ecoregion | ecoregion numeric code | | EVIgs\_slope\_percent | linear change in EVIgs, in percent per 20 years | ## data\_for\_fig\_4b.csv | column | content | | ------------------------- | ----------------------------------------------------- | | ecoregion | ecoregion numeric code | | NE\_EVIgs\_slope\_percent | linear change in NE of EVIgs, in percent per 20 years | ## data\_for\_fig\_5.csv | column | content | | ------------- | -------------------------------------------- | | comp | LC type composition | | block | block identifier | | NE | NE of EVIgs | | NE\_mean | average NE for this composition | | NE\_direction | direction of NE (neutral is not significant) | | order | position on abscissa for plotting |