Digital revolution inspires new research direction in ecosystem structural diversity
by Steve Koppes, Purdue University
February 01, 2023
A special issue of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment lays the foundation for pursuing structural diversity as a new research direction in ecology. The issue, funded by the National Science Foundation, also describes the digital data collection methods that enable the new research direction, and the applications of the work in various ecosystems.
“Structural diversity is thinking about what elements occupy a space and how they have been arranged in the space,” said the special issue’s lead editor, Songlin Fei, a professor of forestry and natural resources and the Dean’s Chair of Remote Sensing at Purdue. “The hope is that we’re providing a framework that can be applied regardless of the system that you’re working in, from terrestrial to aquatic.”
As Fei and three co-editors wrote in their overview, the special issue’s contributions “provide a new framework for structural diversity, new applications to ecological theory, and case studies.”
Read the Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment paper: https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/15409309/2023/21/1