Monitoring EBI/GNDVI in the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve

Jin Yeh, Environmental & Forestry Sciences

Wildflowers are important and especially sensitive to climate variability, and wildflower phenological changes (e.g. shifts in the timing of life cycles) affect wildlife, pollinators, and other species whose behavior is linked to phenological state. But while robust phenology monitoring methodologies have been developed in most flowering plant ecosystems, limited data is present in extreme environments, even more so with methodologies utilizing satellite remote sensing. I will present preliminary findings that use PlanetScope’s 3-meter resolution surface reflectance product to monitor the Enhanced Bloom Index (EBI) and Green Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (GNDVI) of Eschscholzia californica in the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve. I will show how phenological event metrics can be extracted and lend insight into bloom trends.