Satellite remote sensing for applied ecologists: opportunities and challenges

Summary Habitat loss and degradation, overexploitation, climate change and the spread of invasive species are drastically depleting the Earth's biological diversity, leading to detrimental impacts on ecosystem services and human well‐being. Our ability to monitor the state of biodiversity and the impacts of global environmental change on this natural capital is fundamental to designing effective adaptation and mitigation strategies for preventing further loss of biological diversity. This requires the scientific community to assess spatio‐temporal changes in the distribution of abiotic conditions (e.g. temperature, rainfall) and in the distribution, structure, composition and functioning of ecosystems. The…