Retrieval of Foliar Information about Plant Pigment Systems from High Resolution Spectroscopy

Authors

Susan L. Ustin, University of California, Davis, Davis, CA
Anatoly A. Gitelson, University of Nebraska at LincolnFollow
Stéphane Jacquemoud, Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Université Paris Diderot & Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Géophysique spatiale et planétaire - Bâtiment Lamarck Case 7011, 35 rue Hélène Brion 75013 Paris, France
Michael Schaepman, Center for Geo-Information, Wageningen University, 6700AA Wageningen, The Netherlands
Gregory P. Asner, Department of Global Ecology, Carnegie Institution of Science, 260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305, USA
John A. Gamon, California State University Los AngelesFollow
Pablo Zarco-Tejada, Instituto de Agricultura Sostenible (IAS), Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), Spain

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

9-2009

Comments

Published in Remote Sensing of Environment 113, Supplement 1 (September 2009; Imaging Spectroscopy Special Issue), pp. S67–S77; doi: 10.1016/j.rse.2008.10.019 Copyright © 2009 Elsevier Inc. Used by permission.

Abstract

Life on Earth depends on photosynthesis. Photosynthetic systems evolved early in Earth history and have been stable for 2.5 billion years, providing prima facie evidence for the significance of pigments in plant functions. Photosynthetic pigments fill multiple roles from increasing the range of energy captured for photosynthesis to protective functions. Given the importance of pigments to leaf functioning, greater effort is needed to determine whether individual pigments can be identified and quantified in vivo using high fidelity spectroscopy. We review recent advances in detecting plant pigments at the leaf level and discuss successes and reasons why challenges remain for robust remote observation and quantification. New methods to identify and quantify individual pigments in the presence of overlapping absorption features would provide a major advance in understanding their biological functions, quantifying net carbon exchange, and identifying plant stresses.