Hyperspectral discrimination of coral reef benthic communities

This study sought to extend the spectral library of reef associated species found in the literature as well as to investigate variation in optical reflectance within colonies of the same species from different geographical regions. We tested the spectral discrimination of species and taxonomic groups using a hierarchical classification system, to compare results from hyperspectral reflectance and derivative datasets to those simulated for three visible multispectral wavebands typical of the high spatial resolution optical sensors (e.g. IKONOS and QuickBird).