Measuring β‐diversity by remote sensing: a challenge for biodiversity monitoring

Biodiversity includes multiscalar and multitemporal structures and processes, with different levels of functional organization, from genetic to ecosystemic levels. One of the mostly used methods to infer bio- diversity is based on taxonomic approaches and community ecology theories. However, gathering extensive data in the field is difficult due to logistic problems, especially when aiming at modelling biodiversity changes in space and time, which assumes statistically sound sampling schemes. In this context, airborne or satellite remote sensing allow information to be gathered over wide areas in a reasonable time. Most of the biodiversity maps obtained from remote sensing have been based on the inference of species richness by regression analysis. On the contrary, estimating compositional turnover (β-diversity) might add crucial information related to relative abundance of dif- ferent species instead of just richness. Presently, few studies have addressed the measurement of...