The work addresses a practical problem for people who monitor plants: flowers can last only a few weeks, and ground observations and time-lapse photography cannot capture broader changes across ecosystems, according to lead author Yoseline Angel. An imaging spectrometer built by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory mapped thousands of acres in hundreds of wavelengths, recording flowers as they bloomed and aged over months. [S1]
In 2022, the aircraft-mounted AVIRIS-NG instrument surveyed vegetation at two reserves in Santa Barbara County, California. Researchers observed two native shrubs, Coreopsis gigantea and Artemisia californica, from February to June. NASA says their method captured 97% of the subtle spectral differences among flowers, leaves and background cover and identified flowering stages with 80% certainty. [S1]
Angel described support for farmers and natural-resource managers as an ultimate goal. Flowering plants produce commodities including fruit, nuts, medicines and cotton, and the people managing them also depend on pollinators. The study was part of an airborne and field campaign jointly led by the Nature Conservancy, the University of California, Santa Barbara, and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. [S1]
Source documents
- NASA Takes to the Air to Study Wildflowershttps://www.nasa.gov/earth/nasa-takes-to-the-air-to-study-wildflowers/