Landslide history, landscape diversity and climate modulate landscape memory: Implications for tropical mountains in a changing Earth

Abstract

Landsliding is an important driver of change in tropical mountains, and one which is shaped by landscape memory – the influence of past landscape states on future processes. As tropical mountains face increasing impacts of climate change, understanding landscape memory’s role is critical for understanding how ecological processes shaped by landslides will shift. This thesis investigates two key facets of landscape memory using a historic landslide geodatabase: how past disturbances (1) influence future disturbances and (2) shape biodiversity. In the first chapter, I define “landslide states” which link recovery from one set of disturbances to subsequent landsliding activity and model their distribution along current and future climate scenarios. In the second chapter, I use a PRISMA hyperspectral dataset to generate metrics of spectral and functional diversity, first applying an experimental design testing how methodological steps affect diversity, then investigating the relationship between diversity and landslide history.