by Matteo Cavallito<\/p>\n
Drones and multispectral imagery can help assess the condition and functions of biocrusts<\/strong>, the thin living communities found on the surface of dryland soils. This is the finding of a Penn State University<\/strong> study that combined reflectance data and machine-learning models to estimate levels of soil organic carbon<\/strong> and nitrogen and, above all, the concentrations of certain pigments. These include scytonemin<\/strong>, a pigment produced by certain cyanobacteria<\/strong> to protect themselves from ultraviolet radiation which, according to the research<\/a> published in the journal Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation<\/em>, \u201cis a key functional indicator of biocrust stress tolerance and resilience while influencing albedo and surface temperature in drylands\u201d.<\/p>\n