Operationalising weather surveillance radar data for use in ecological research

Abstract

Global biodiversity declines require a step change in monitoring frameworks to properly track and diagnose population trends. National weather surveillance radar (WSR) networks offer high spatial (ca. 1-10 km) and temporal (5–10 min) resolution data collected over regional and decadal scales, with well-supported infrastructure that holds great promise for the study of biodiversity. However, WSR datasets pose new challenges for ecologists due to their format, volume, and three-dimensional spatial structure. Here, we define a novel approach to the processing of WSR data to produce a product that can be used to interrogate trends in aerial biodiversity (abundance or diversity) at and across individual ground-level sites. From the full volume of WSR data collected approximately every six minutes we extract vertical columns of WSR observations above sites to compare against standardised nocturnal macro-moth monitoring data at ground level. The results show that there is strong agreement between the WSR-derived proxy of biodiversity in the air column and ground-level measurements of abundance and diversity in nocturnal moth communities. The columnar product operates on a biologically relevant scale with a diameter of 5 km, although column dimensions can easily be customised, and can be deployed at any site within a WSR's observable range. These findings have the potential to unlock past and present WSR observations for widespread application to existing and novel ecological questions and can be applied to weather radar networks around the world.