Satellite Data Products: Community Priorities for Biodiversity Science and Conservation

Satellite remote sensing capabilities have advanced rapidly in recent years, with multispectral optical imagery, LiDAR, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), and thermal observations now providing unprecedented potential to assess biodiversity-relevant habitat characteristics at national to global scales. These measurements directly support Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs)—especially Ecosystem Vertical Structure, Phenology, and Primary Productivity—that underpin analyses of species–habitat relationships, ecological processes, and responses to climate and land-use change. Yet despite numerous successful demonstrations over limited extents, operational biodiversity data products remain scarce.

A major constraint is the lack of community-agreed product specifications, including spatial resolution, temporal frequency, vertical accuracy, uncertainty thresholds, and standardized formats required for broad adoption by biodiversity scientists, wildlife managers, and policy stakeholders. This impedes the development of globally consistent Biodiversity Indicators aligned with reporting needs under the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).

To help close this gap, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) has initiated a structured series of engagement activities to define priority satellite products that would deliver the greatest value for biodiversity conservation. Here, we present findings from the Remote Sensing for Animal Movement (RSAM) study, synthesizing perspectives from more than 50 experts in movement ecology and satellite remote sensing to:

• identify habitat characteristics most critical for current animal movement studies and define required spatial, temporal, and vertical resolutions;

• develop an ecologically meaningful typology of habitat attributes relevant to movement processes;

• assess whether current satellite systems meet these observational needs and where measurement bottlenecks persist; and

• highlight opportunities for next-generation capabilities to fill gaps in spatial detail, measurement frequency, and environmental representation.

Across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine systems, participants consistently ranked Ecosystem Structure and Ecosystem Function as the highest-priority observation needs, with Composition, Condition, and Use following in importance.

Sustained engagement with additional biodiversity end-user communities will extend these findings into a coordinated portfolio of analysis-ready, routinely produced satellite biodiversity products, enabling actionable conservation decisions and transparent global biodiversity assessment.