Transcriptomics from Space: Next in the AEOIP Webinar Series

Use this Forum to find information on, or ask a question about, NASA Earth Science data.
Post Reply
ORNL - mthornton
User Services
User Services
Posts: 38
Joined: Tue Jun 23, 2020 2:46 pm America/New_York
Answers: 0
Location: ORNL DAAC
Has thanked: 2 times
Been thanked: 1 time
Contact:

Transcriptomics from Space: Next in the AEOIP Webinar Series

by ORNL - mthornton » Thu Feb 16, 2023 1:09 pm America/New_York

Join the Latest AEOIP Webinar Series: Transcriptomics from Space

On Tuesday, February 28, 2023 from 11:00 am -12:00 pm EST the next 2022-2023 webinar series will be hosted by the Applied Earth Observations Innovation Partnership (AEOIP). This seminar will highlight a new project that cross-leverages genomics and satellite remote sensing to better understand threats to forest health following drought and water stress. The project is led by Dr. Nathan Swenson from the University of Notre Dame in support of a public-private partnership between NASA’s Ecological Conservation Program and the biotechnology company, Illumina.

REGISTER HERE

How can this new research help lead to improved management strategies to ensure the health and resiliency of forests in a changing climate? We invite you to join us to learn more about this new methodology and to share with us how information derived from this project may contribute to your management priorities. Everett Hinkley, National Remote Sensing Program Manager for the USDA Forest Service, and Keith Gaddis, Program Manager for the NASA Ecological Conservation program, will kick-off this seminar with an overview of current efforts at their respective agencies to help identify and facilitate the development of successful pathways for Earth Observation data uptake into land management decision-making.

Transcriptomics from Space: Linking Remote Sensing to Tree Gene Expression to Monitor Forest Responses to Water Availability

A great deal of progress has been made over the past two decades to the determine the distribution of species and biodiversity by describing how key plant traits relate to environmental gradients. This progress has been made possible through a focus on a handful of traits depicting important tradeoffs that can be measured relatively quickly across large numbers of species using standardized protocols. A downside of this approach, however, is that a great deal of the functional diversity within and across individuals and species cannot be assayed and the dynamic responses of individuals to changing environmental conditions is often not measured. Transcriptomics, the sequencing and analysis of all the functional genes expressed in a tissue, has the potential to transform the field of functional ecology and to overcome some of these previous barriers.

While transcriptomic studies have been previously limited to a few model species and highly controlled conditions, recent work has demonstrated the ability to carry out transcriptomic studies in the wild on non-model tree species. This includes work demonstrating that the degree to which species express similar genes under drought conditions provides far better predictions of tree species distributions in a natural stand when compared to commonly measured plant functional traits. Given evidence that remote sensing can detect differential gene expression in crop systems and tree responses to environmental stress and traits related to photosynthesis, it stands to reason that it is possible to estimate pixel-level gene expression via remote sensing to estimate how tree species are distributed on a landscape and how they function through a growing season and in response to water deficit.

In this talk, Dr. Nathan Swenson will introduce new research that leverages previous work quantifying gene expression in response to drought for the dominant tree species found in northern Wisconsin and supplement this with additional physiological and transcriptomic information and remote sensing products from ECOSTRESS, GEDI, and DESIS. This research addresses the following questions:
  • how well does inter-specific diversity in hyperspectral and thermal infrared signatures map onto leaf gene expression in individual canopy tree species during the growing season and under non-drought and drought conditions?
  • given that species with similar gene expression responses to drought cluster topographically, can remotely sensed information regarding topography, seasonal water stress and leaf traits be used to map pixel-level gene expression on the landscape?
  • and, finally, how well can we predict the distribution of species and their gene expression through space and time on the landscape using remotely sensed information?

The approach includes greenhouse and field studies to confirm a linkage between gene expression and hyperspectral and thermal infrared signatures, measurements of leaf gene expression coinciding with the timing of satellite-based measurements and out-of-sample prediction of tree species distributions and gene expression based upon remotely sensed information. The work will be conducted using two long-term research sites in northern Wisconsin and the upper peninsula of Michigan – one is a Smithsonian ForestGeo long-term forest dynamics plot and the other is a NSF NEON site.

-------
The AEOIP seeks to foster interagency partnerships to advance Earth Observation-based land management. Our webinar series aims to highlight available Earth Observation missions and data, demonstrate the utility of Earth Observation data to address land management needs, as well as foster and share successful applications of Earth observations into operational land management decision-making. Learn more about us by visiting our website at: https://www.aeoip.com/.

Tags:

Post Reply