Advances in remote sensing technologies offer new means to monitor habitats of importance on large scales. Florida rosemary scrub is one such threatened habitat, found in patches across the landscape in relatively elevated areas, and is often characterized by shrub‐less areas (gaps) among the dominant shrubs, which provide favorable microhabitats for many endemic and endangered plants and animals. However, gaps are difficult and time‐consuming to characterize, especially across large areas, using traditional ground‐based field methods. We developed and tested a method for rapidly classifying gaps using an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV or drone). Aerial data were collected by a UAV‐mounted camera in April 2018, and stratified, random ground surveys to verify UAV data were conducted March through April 2018 at Archbold Biological Station in south‐central Florida, USA. We used mosaicked and georeferenced digital surface and terrain models to calculate vegetation height across 33 rosemary scrub sites (~230,000 m² at 0.064 m² pixel resolution). Gaps were defined as >1 m² areas where vegetation height was <10 cm. We found that gap areas from UAV models and field surveys were significantly correlated across varying gap sizes, times‐since‐fire, and relative elevations. We also observed a significant decrease in mean gap area and percent gap space with increasing time‐since‐fire, a pattern consistent with smaller‐scale, ground‐based sampling, and a marginally significant increase in gap area with relative elevation. This remote sensing method lends itself to better exploration of how gap areas, their spatiotemporal patterns, and associated fire history, elevation, soil, and other geographic data affect structural vegetation dynamics across the landscape. This study illustrates the success of UAV modeling of gap space in Florida rosemary scrub, a result of regional consequence for the southeastern United States, but more broadly, it encourages the use of UAV technology as a tool to enhance traditional field‐based methods in systems globally. As habitat fragmentation and loss become increasingly problematic for the conservation of threatened habitats, understanding these complex spatial dynamics is crucial to the conservation and management of vegetation communities and their biodiversity.

中文翻译：

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使用无人飞行器绘制佛罗里达迷迭香灌木丛中空间显着的植被间隙图

遥感技术的进步为大规模监测重要栖息地提供了新的手段。佛罗里达迷迭香灌木丛是这种受威胁的栖息地之一，在相对较高的区域中遍布整个景观的斑块中，并且通常特征在于优势灌木丛中没有灌木丛的区域（空隙），为许多地方性和濒临灭绝的动植物提供了有利的微生境。但是，使用传统的基于地面的野外方法很难对缺口进行刻画，尤其是在大面积区域进行刻画。我们开发并测试了一种使用无人飞行器（UAV或无人驾驶飞机）对间隙进行快速分类的方法。空中数据是在2018年4月通过安装在无人机上的摄像机收集的，并进行了分层，2018年3月至2018年4月，在美国佛罗里达州中南部的Archbold生物站进行了随机地面调查，以验证无人机数据。我们使用镶嵌和地理参考的数字地表和地形模型来计算33个迷迭香灌木丛地点（〜230,000 m²为0.064 m ²像素分辨率）。间隙定义为> 1 m ²植被高度小于10厘米的区域。我们发现，无人机模型和现场调查的差距区域在不同的差距大小，自发射时间和相对海拔高度之间具有显着的相关性。我们还观察到，自开火以来，平均间隙面积和间隙空间百分比显着减少，这种模式与较小规模的地面采样一致，并且间隙面积随相对高度而略有增加。这种遥感方法有助于更好地探索间隙区域，其时空模式以及相关的火灾历史，海拔，土壤和其他地理数据如何影响整个景观的结构植被动态。这项研究说明了美国佛罗里达州迷迭香灌木丛中UAV建模间隙空间的成功，这是美国东南部地区性后果的结果，但从更广泛的意义上讲，它鼓励使用无人机技术作为增强全球系统中基于现场的传统方法的工具。随着生境破碎化和丧失对于受威胁生境的保护越来越成为问题，了解这些复杂的空间动态对于保护和管理植被群落及其生物多样性至关重要。