Unmanned aerial vehicle methods makes species composition monitoring easier in grasslands

Abstract Species composition plays a critical role in environmental conservation, ecosystem functioning and health of grasslands. However, there is no efficient and long-term monitoring method. In this study, we developed a practical method with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), and tested it along a range of grazing intensities in alpine meadow of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. We found that 1) there were significant linear relationships of widely used species composition indices between this and traditional methods (P

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