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Sample Thesis Title with a Concise and Accurate ASSESSING HIGH ALTITUDE ANDEAN WETLANDS USING PLANT COMMUNITY STRUCTURE: A MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS AND REMOTE SENSING APPROACH by María José Ruiz-Esquide Forestry Engineering, University of Chile, 2009 A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF MASTER OF APPLIED SCIENCE in THE FACULTY OF GRADUATE AND POSTDOCTORAL STUDIES (Forestry) THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA (Vancouver) April 2015 © María José Ruiz-Esquide, 2015 Abstract High altitude wetlands of the Central Andes Cordillera in South America are unique ecosystems with valuable ecosystem functions and one of the environments most threatened by climate change. They play a significant role in sustaining endemic biota, in providing the grasslands for herd of alpacas, llamas and vicuñas and by storing water and releasing it during the year to one of the driest regions on the earth, the Atacama Desert. This ecosystem is dependent on groundwater sources, and vegetation regulates the amount of water available during the dry periods. In Chile, the increasing demand for water requires more technical knowledge and research in order to prevent further degradation. The objective of this research is the description of Tarapacá and Atacama regions’ wetlands plant communities, the abiotic factors and human impacts that are more strongly associated with them by multivariate analysis and a remote sensing approach. Chapter 1 is a review of high altitude Andean wetlands and their importance. In Chapter 2, I identified differences in plant communities’ structure. Each region was distinguished by 5 different plant communities according to the vegetation wetland types. Abiotic factors and physical attributes that were more strongly associated with plant communities were the number and width of principal streams found on the wetland and amount of rocks, bare land and percent of organic matter along the vegetation transects. Using field work and remote sensing, in Chapter 3, I performed a spectral discrimination among plant communities using IKONOS-2 and Geoeye- 1 high resolution satellites images. They were used to identify which bands and vegetation indices were the most effective for discriminating vegetation classes. Vegetation classes did express different spectral behaviors. The classes with more reflectance variation were mixed grasses with Oxychloe andina, mixed grasses with salt patches and mixed grasses with ii Zameioscirpus atacamensis, while classes dominated by O. andina, Z. atacamensis and Festuca chrysophylla expressed less variation on the spectral range. General Discriminant Analysis showed that the most important spectral bands and vegetation indices for distinguishing differences between vegetation classes were Band 1-blue, band 4-NIR and the Wide Dynamic Range Vegetation Index. iii Preface This thesis is made as a completion of the Master of Applied Science in Forestry at UBC. This work is original intellectual, unpublished, independent work by the author, MJ. Ruiz- Esquide Enriquez. In this project, the research was not subject to ethics review, produced no publications by the time of graduation, and was designed, carried out, and analyzed by the author. The thesis was conducted under the main supervision of Dr John Richardson, head of Department, Forest and Conservation sciences and director of Stream and Riparian Research Laboratory, Faculty of Forestry, UBC. Analysis of the research data on Chapter 2 is based on work co-supervised by Dr Gary, Bradfield, Department of Botany, Faculty of Science, UBC. Analysis of the research data on Chapter 3 is based on the work co-supervised by Dr Nicholas Coops, Department of Forest Resource Management, Faculty of Forestry, UBC. Plant identification collaboration is based on the work done by Dr. Victor Ardiles from the Chilean National History Museum, the professional forest engineer Patricio Medina and Dr. Prof. Luis Faundez, University of Chile. iv Table of Contents Abstract .................................................................................................................................... ii Preface ..................................................................................................................................... iv Table of Contents .................................................................................................................... v List of Tables ........................................................................................................................ viii List of Figures .......................................................................................................................... x Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................... xii Dedication ............................................................................................................................. xiv Chapter 1: HIGH ALTITUDE WETLANDS: REVIEW ........................................................ 1 1.1. High altitude wetlands in the world .............................................................................. 1 1.2. High altitude wetlands of the Andes Cordillera ............................................................ 2 1.3. Altiplano wetlands in Chile .......................................................................................... 4 1.3.1. Tarapacá region ..................................................................................................... 11 1.3.2. Atacama region ..................................................................................................... 13 1.4. Altiplano wetlands dynamics ...................................................................................... 15 1.5. Environmental effects on wetland plant assemblages ................................................ 17 1.6. Multivariate analysis of plant communities ................................................................ 19 1.7. Remotely sensing wetlands ......................................................................................... 21 1.8. Conservation and management ................................................................................... 24 1.9. Study objectives .......................................................................................................... 25 Chapter 2: ASSESSING PLANT COMMUNITY STRUCTURE OF HIGH ALTITUDE ANDEAN WETLANDS BY MULTIVARIATE ANALYSIS. ............................................. 27 2.1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 27 v 2.2. Materials and methods ................................................................................................ 29 2.2.1. Study sites ........................................................................................................... 29 2.2.2. Field data collection ............................................................................................ 30 2.2.3. Statistical analysis ............................................................................................... 33 2.3. Results ......................................................................................................................... 35 2.3.1. How is the plant community structured in Altiplano wetlands? ........................... 35 2.3.2. Which plant communities can be found and which abiotic factors are more strongly associated with them? ............................................................................................... 40 2.3.3. Do wetlands affected by different human and cattle activities have different plant communities? .......................................................................................................................... 48 2.4. Discussion ................................................................................................................... 50 2.4.1 How is the plant community structured in Altiplano wetlands? ......................... 50 2.4.2 Which plant communities can be found and which abiotic factors are more strongly associated with them? ....................................................................................... 51 2.4.3 Do wetlands affected by different human and cattle activities have different plant communities? .................................................................................................................. 53 Chapter 3: EVALUATING THE SUCCESS OF HIGH-RESOLUTION DIGITAL IMAGERY FOR ASSESSMENTS OF HIGH ALTITUDE WETLAND PLANT COMMUNITIES .................................................................................................................... 57 3.1. Introduction ................................................................................................................. 57 3.1.1. Vegetation indices ......................................................................................................... 57 3.1.2. Spectral classification of wetlands ........................................................................ 59 3.1.4. The statistical analysis approach ........................................................................... 63 vi 3.2. Materials and methods ................................................................................................ 64 3.2.1. Study area............................................................................................................ 64 3.2.2. Data collection ...................................................................................................
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