Evaluating the vegetation biodiversity from space

Creating an ideal environment to enrich biodiversity can be managed in two ways, i.e. by protecting rare and common species (i), and by improving the environmental conditions of the specific ecosystem (ii). The first measure results in an excellent balanced food pyramid with a sustainable cyclic biotic and mineral energy transition. The second measure, however, is connected to minimal entropy production according to Penrose´s claim that biologic life is lowering the entropy production rate of Earth. Minimum entropy implies maximum order so that any ecosystem tends to maximum biodiversity, at least to its local boundary conditions. Entropy production of an ecosystem, is linked to the Shannon entropy of the statistical species distribution of the respective ecosystem according to Stephan Hubbel´s Unified Neutral Theory of Biodiversity (2001). Hubbel put on the statistical ensemble of species situated in a mature vegetation area, a lognormal distribution of species according to the McArthur´s Island theory and confirmed by Fisher. The standard deviation decreases with entropy production increase and vice versa. This distribution contains one deficiency since it underestimated the contributions of rare species.

We derive Earth´s entropy production from the Stefan-Boltzmann law. Monthly land surface temperature (LST) are obtained from remotely sensed MODIS and SENTINEL data over the period 2003-2020 and monthly latent heat data from the FLUXCOM-X global fluxes collection for a one by one kilometer pixels. We analyse 11 ecosystems worldwide (mean of 3 x 3 pixels). Eight of them are National Parks where minimal anthropogenic stress can be assumed. Three control areas subjected to human economic activity nearby National Parks are added for comparison.

A decline in entropy production down to -3.7% per decade is observed in areas around the equator (Foz do Iguaço in Brazil, the Ngorongoro in Tanzania, and Gal Oya in Sri Lanka). The entropy production over the Mediterranean area (Spain) and northern Europe (Finland) is stable, while the entropy production is increasing dramatically up to +2.4% per decade over the western European National Parks (the Netherlands, Flanders). These areas are characterized by a very high anthropogenic environmental pressure. Differences in the trends of entropy production are observed when mean values are computed from 3 x 3 pixels or from 9 x 9 pixels. Generally, the more the pixels, the smoother, the smaller the absolute trend values. For the Landes in France, the trend switches from a small negative value on the larger scale to a more substantial positive value at the smaller scale. Generally, wetter ecosystems tend to lower the Earth´s entropy production thereby increasing the biodiversity of vegetation.