Modelling dry season deciduousness in Mexican Yucatán forest using MODIS EVI data (2000–2011)

Figures & data

Table 1. Summary of land surface phenology studies.

Study area	Temporal extent	Sensor	Temporal Res.	Spatial Res.	Measurement of phenology	Relation to climate	Study
Southern Amazon Basin	2002	MODIS	16 day	250 m	EVI observations were compared to vegetation fraction (VF) estimates from spectral mixture analysis	Linear regression relating EVI and VF to precipitation	Anderson et al. (2011)
North Carolina, USA	2001–2008	MODIS	16 day	250 m	Logistic functions fit to seasonal LAI change and phenological metrics extracted at fitted maxima and inflection points	Linear regression relating phenological dates to topographic variables	Hwang et al. (2011)
Hawai'i, USA	2006–2007	MODIS	16 day	250 m	Seasonal cycles of EVI and NDVI decomposed into harmonic terms	Amplitude of largest harmonic term compared across different rainfall regime extents	Park (2010)
Cambodia	2001–2002	AVHRR	10 day	1 km	Extraction of dates of local NDVI maxima and minima	Temporal correspon- dence of max./min. NDVI and dry season	Ito et al. (2008)
Amazon Basin	2002	MODIS	8 day	500 m	Seasonal EVI change	Temporal correspon- dence of peak EVI and dry season	Xiao et al. (2006)
Global	1982–2000	AVHRR	10 day	8 km	Seasonal NDVI change	Linear regression relating NDVI to LST, Precip.	Tateishi and Ebata (2004)
Kansas, USA	1989–1997	AVHRR	14 day	1.1 km	Seasonal NDVI change	Linear regression relating NDVI to Temperature., Precip.	Wang et al. (2001)

Figure 1. The Mexican Yucatán Peninsula, with study area indicated in red. Circle markers show approximate location of litter measurement by Lawrence (2005). Triangle marker shows the location of litter measurement by Whigham et al. (1990).

Table 2. Data used in the study.

Variable	Sensor/Source	Product name	Spatial resolution	Spatial extent in region	Static/dynamic	Temporal resolution/extent
EVI	MODIS Terra	MOD13A3	1 km	Full	Dynamic	Monthly, 2000–2011
Land surface temperature	MODIS Terra	MOD11C3	0.05 deg.	Full	Dynamic	Monthly, 2000–2011
Precipitation	TRMM	34B3	0.25 deg.	Full	Dynamic	Monthly, 2000–2011
Elevation	SRTM	DEM	90 m	Full	Static	2000
Deciduousness	Landsat TM, ETM–		30 m	Scene 20/47 (˜92 W to 86 W; 17 N to 20 N)	7 Dates (Unequally-spaced)	2009
Forest type/land cover	Landsat ETM–		30 m	Scenes 20/47 and 19/47	Static	2010

Figure 2. Seasonal deciduousness map created using a Mahalanobis Typicality threshold for deciduousness in three Landsat TM and ETM– scenes from 2009 (16 February, 4 March, and 5April).

Table 3. EVI, precipitation, and temperature conditions observed during the study period, spatially extracted over the total study area (temp. = temporal).

	EVI			Precipitation mm/month			Temperature degrees C
Annual period (starting year):	Mean	Seasonal Range	Std. Dev. (temp., monthly)	Mean	Seasonal Range	Std. Dev. (temp., monthly)	Mean	Seasonal Range	Std. Dev. (temp., monthly)
2000	0.54	0.16	0.06	128	297	113	25.6	7.5	2.2
2001	0.55	0.16	0.05	108	259	78	25.8	6.4	2.1
2002	0.54	0.14	0.06	114	339	95	26.5	9.4	2.8
2003	0.52	0.18	0.06	114	207	67	26.3	9.0	2.5
2004	0.53	0.20	0.07	91	221	69	26.6	6.5	2.3
2005	0.51	0.19	0.06	84	145	57	26.3	8.2	2.9
2006	0.53	0.21	0.06	92	160	49	25.8	8.3	2.6
2007	0.53	0.13	0.05	77	145	47	26.3	8.0	2.6
2008	0.52	0.18	0.06	73	251	71	26.2	8.6	3.0
2009	0.51	0.14	0.05	77	121	36	26.7	8.0	2.7
2010	0.51	0.18	0.06	71	207	61	26.6	9.0	2.8
2000–2011	0.53	0.17	0.06	93	214	67	26.2	8.1	2.6
Std. Dev. (temp., interannual)	0.01	0.03	0.01	19	69	22	0.4	1.0	0.3

Figure 3. Temporal profile of monthly EVI, TRMM precipitation and MODIS land surface temperature spatially averaged over the entire study area (left) and in two ˜21.5 km² deciduous and non-deciduous target areas (right).

Figure 4. Spatial distribution of frequency of deciduousness (years out of 11) map for the study area. Locations of frequent deciduous dominance are concentrated in the northwest of the study area to the immediate northwest of regional uplands.

Table 4. Seasonal variability regression results, for both total-time-series and dry-season-only regressions.

mean-normalized time series dep. Variable: EVI	SEASONAL VARIABILITY				Multivariate Regression (Adj.R ^2)lst0 – precip 012
	Univariate Regressions (R ^2)
	precip 0	precip 1	precip 012	lst0
Total Time Series (N=132)
Total Study Area	0.13	0.19	0.28	0.18	0.34
Never Decid. Dom.	0.11	0.16	0.23	0.12	0.27
1–2 yrs. Decid. Dom.	0.12	0.20	0.29	0.20	0.36
3–4 yrs. Decid. Dom.	0.17	0.26	0.38	0.13	0.50
5– yrs. Decid. Dom.	0.19	0.28	0.42	0.39	0.57
Jan-May Only (N=55)
Total Study Area	0.05	0.11	0.13	0.27	0.33
Never Decid. Dom.	0.05	0.08	0.12	0.20	0.25
1–2 yrs. Decid. Dom.	0.06	0.12	0.14	0.30	0.38
3–4 yrs. Decid. Dom.	0.05	0.15	0.15	0.39	0.47
5– yrs. Decid. Dom.	0.05	0.19	0.15	0.45	0.53
Notes: Variable names are abbreviated: precip0 = same month precipitation; precip1 = 1-month-lagged precipitation; precip012 = total precipitation in same and preceding 2 months; lst0 = same month land surface temperature.

Figure 5. ANOVA significance (p = 0.001) of multivariate regressions explaining EVI using same-month temperature and total precipitation in same month and prior 2 months.

Figure 6. Spatial distribution of adjusted R ² values for multivariate regressions explaining EVI using same-month temperature and total precipitation in same month and prior 2 months. Legend is scaled to the observed maximum and minimum adjusted R ² values.

Table 5. Interannual variability regression results, for both total-time-series and dry-season-only regressions.

deseasoned time seriesdep. Variable: EVI	INTERANNUAL VARIABILITY				Multivariate Regression (Adj.R ^2)std_lst0 – std_precip 012
	Univariate Regressions (R ^2)
	std_precip 0	std_precip 1	std_precip 012	std_lst0
Total Time Series (N=132)
Total Study Area	0.02	0.03	0.05	0.09	0.10
Never Decid. Dom.	0.01	0.02	0.04	0.06	0.07
1–2 yrs. Decid. Dom.	0.02	0.03	0.05	0.10	0.11
3–4 yrs. Decid. Dom.	0.03	0.05	0.08	0.15	0.17
5– yrs. Decid. Dom.	0.04	0.06	0.10	0.18	0.21
Jan-May Only (N=55)
Total Study Area	0.05	0.07	0.10	0.24	0.24
Never Decid. Dom.	0.04	0.06	0.08	0.17	0.17
1–2 yrs. Decid. Dom.	0.05	0.07	0.11	0.27	0.28
3–4 yrs. Decid. Dom.	0.05	0.09	0.14	0.38	0.38
5– yrs. Decid. Dom.	0.06	0.12	0.17	0.40	0.41
Notes: Variable names are abbreviated as in Table 4, with the addition of ‘std_’ to denote that data have been deseasoned.

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