UAS for tackling plant invasions (2018-19)

MOBILITY project supports collaboration with the IRSTEA research group in Grenoble, France focusing on knotweeds and their detection using unmanned aerial system. Project enables us to exchange ideas, prepare joint manuscripts and plan future research.

Project aims in finding the best mapping strategies for invasive Asian knotweeds using VHR imagery of satellite and UAV origin by automatic/semi-automatic detection algorithms. Combination of the experience and knowledge of the IRSTEA (Grenoble, France) and IBOT teams aims in establishing a strong collaboration crossing the skills. Assessment of both advantages and disadvantages of different detection methods and means of data acquisition helps to identify the most suitable methods for a various environmental conditions. Collaboration also enables cross-validation between the methods, enhancing robustness of the methods and assessing possibilities of their generalization, which has never been done yet despite the very importance for the use of such methods in ecological research. The final protocols of invasive species detection by RS means will be used to study the invasiveness of plant communities in regard to different abiotic conditions in both countries. Magnification of the environmental gradient (both latitudinal and altitudinal), enabled by the proposed joint project, will facilitate the assessment of invasion processes at the landscape scale, role of landscape features (such as corridors and natural barriers of the species spread), disturbances, and directions of spread in different landscape types of the two countries. Practical implications of the project are in reducing the negative impact of invasions by providing means for fast and timely monitoring of plant invasions.

Project is funded by MOBILITY MŠMT (2018-19). See more at ResearchGate

Principal investigator: Jana Müllerová

Other team members: Josef Brůna, Jan Wild

Collaborators: F. Dommanget, A. Evette,  F. Martin and others from Institut national de recherché en sciences et technologies pour l’environnement et l’agriculture (IRSTEA), Unité de recherche Écosystèmes Montagnards in Grenoble, France