The relationship between species and spectral diversity in grassland communities is mediated by their vertical complexity

Aims The link between spectral diversity and in-situ plant biodiversity is one promising approach to using remote sensing for assessment. Nevertheless, there little evidence as whether this maintained at fine scales, well how it influenced by vegetation's vertical complexity. Here we test, the community level in grasslands, of signal (SDiv) taxonomic (TDiv), influence Methods We used 196 1.5 m × experimental communities with different levels. To measure complexity, quantified height (HDiv) most abundant species community. TDiv was calculated Shannon index based on cover. Canopy information gathered an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) mounted a multi-spectral sensor providing via six 10-nm bands covering visible near-infrared region spatial resolution 3 cm. measured SDiv core area 1 ×1 within mean Euclidean distance all pixels feature space spanned two first components PCA complete raster stack. modelled through mixed-effect linear models, TDiv, HDiv, their interaction fixed-effect predictors. Results Contrary our expectations, negatively linked SDiv. positively related More importantly, had significant negative interaction, meaning more complex vegetation terms height, SDiv–TDiv relationship became negative. Conclusions Our results suggest that order exploit monitoring purposes, needs be contextualized. Moreover, highlight communities’ functional characteristics (i.e. height) mediate such link, calling new insights into relation diversity.