Plant diversity is essential for us and our planet as it sustains the stability of our ecosystems, provides vital materials and food to us and supports many ecosystem services. However, plant... Show morePlant diversity is essential for us and our planet as it sustains the stability of our ecosystems, provides vital materials and food to us and supports many ecosystem services. However, plant diversity has shown a strong decline throughout human history, particularly in the past decades. Multiple factors have been and are threatening plant species persistence, particularly climate change and land use change that result from intensive human activities. However, it is well known that different species may respond differently to threats, with some species being vulnerable to environmental change while others are less likely to be threatened. To understand how anthropogenic pressures will affect plant communities and find proper plant conservation strategies, it is important to identify how species change over time and to what extent species differ in their response to environmental pressures. In this study, I identified the importance of natural land cover, habitat structure and pollination mode to different plant species and provided practical suggestions for the conservation of different species in the Netherlands. Show less
Biodiversity enables ecosystems to thrive through the synergy of functional differences among organisms. While human well-being strongly depends on biodiversity-driven ecosystem services, human... Show moreBiodiversity enables ecosystems to thrive through the synergy of functional differences among organisms. While human well-being strongly depends on biodiversity-driven ecosystem services, human actions are also at the root of current unprecedented biodiversity declines. Comprehensive methods to assess the dynamics and state of biodiversity are therefore increasingly urgent. This thesis studies the overlooked capabilities of current satellite observations to conduct large-scale monitoring of plant functional diversity, with a focus on the European Space Agency’s flagship Sentinel-2 satellite. Specifically, it addresses the use of spectral diversity metrics, radiative transfer model inversion, the need for adequate in-situ validation, and the role of spatial scale in our perception and estimation of satellite-derived plant functional diversity patterns. Show less
