arXiv Machine Learning By Robin Young, Michael E. Van Nuland, E. Toby Kiers, Tom\'a\v{s} V\v{e}trovsk\'y, Petr Kohout, Petr Baldrian, Srinivasan Keshav

Below-ground Fungal Biodiversity Can be Monitored Using Self-Supervised Learning Satellite Features

Read the original on arXiv Machine Learning →

The study demonstrates that self‑supervised learning (SSL) applied to satellite imagery can predict below‑ground ectomycorrhizal fungal richness across diverse environments, explaining over half the variance in species richness from ~12,000 field samples in Europe and Asia. SSL‑derived features outperform traditional climate, soil, and land‑cover predictors and provide a 10,000‑fold increase in spatial resolution, moving from 1 km averages to 10 m habitat‑scale observations. The approach enables temporal monitoring of underground biodiversity and was applied to two UK National Park woodlands, highlighting ancient forests with high but declining ectomycorrhizal diversity for further field verification.

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