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Vegetation Map of the Chihuahuan Desert-Shortgrass Steppe Transition Zone in the Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge

Ann Bateson & Carol Wessman
CIRES and EPOB

The Sevilleta NSF Long-Term Ecological Research Site is located in central New Mexico at the junction of four biomes (Great Plains Shortgrass Steppe, Great Basin Shrub-Steppe, Chihuahuan Desert and Montane Coniferous Zone). The area provides a rich assortment of transition zones in which the vegetation cover shifts from one biome to the next in a structured but complex fashion. We are using spectral mixture analysis of remote sensing data to determine the structure of the vegetation patchiness at the interface between the Chihuahuan Desert and Great Plains Shortgrass Steppe biomes. The vegetation map was constructed from 44 images acquired at 3.2m resolution by NASA's Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer. The AVIRIS instrument was flown at a time when grasses were senescent and spectrally contrasted to the evergreen creosote. Fractal structure of the patch mosaic and individual patches and edges will be characterized by percolation and multifractal analyses based on the vegetation map. Studies of the influence of landscape structure and configuration on regional biogeochemistry will be conducted.