Aaron Moody

Associate Professor,
Department of Geography
Phone: (919) 962-5303
E-mail: aaronm@email.unc.edu
Office: Saunders 211

Research Interests

I study the role of environmental and ecological factors on the distribution of plant species, plant communities, and species diversity. I am also interested in the influence of current and historical human impacts, both direct and indirect, on current plant distributions. I pursue this work through the integration of field data, satellite data, environmental models, statistical analysis, and ecological theory. My research encompasses scales of inquiry ranging from individual trees to small watersheds to subcontinental regions.

My recent research has focused on the ecological and ecosystem processes underlying spatial patterns of plant species and species richness in the chaparral of the Santa Ynez Mountains, on the California Channel Islands, and in the Smoky Mountains. At larger scales, I and colleagues are integrating satellite data and other ground- and sensor-based data to study ecosystem response to climate variability and climate change. In particular, I am interested in the spatio-temporal dynamics of vegetation productivity, and the relationship of these dynamics to variability in precipitation and temperature.

Xiao, J. & Moody, A. 200-. A comparison of methods for estimating fractional vegetation cover across a large region of central New Mexico, USA. Remote Sensing of Environment. In Press.

McDonald, R., McKnight, M., Weiss, D., Selig, E., O'Conner, M., Violin, C., & Moody, A. 2005. Species compositional similiarity in ecoregions: Do ecoregion boundaries represent zones of high species turnover? Biological Conservation, 126: 24-40.

Xiao, J. & Moody, A. 2005. Geographic distribution of global greening trends and their climatic correlates: 1982 to 1998. International Journal of Remote Sensing. *26*(11): 2371-2390.

Xiao, J. & Moody, A. 2004. Trends in vegetation activity and their climatic correlates: China 1982 to 1998. International Journal of Remote Sensing.

Moody, A. & Katz, D.B. 2004. Artificial intelligence in the study of mountain landscapes. In: M. P. Bishop & J. F. Shroder, Jr. (Eds.) Geographic Information Science (GIScience) and Mountain Geomorphology Springer Verlag-Praxis Scientific Publishing Ltd., In Press.

Xiao, J. & Moody, A. 2004. Photosynthetic activity of U.S. biomes: Response to spatial and temporal variability in temperature and precipitation. Global Change Biology Online Publication: 02/20/04.

Xiao, J., Li, J., & Moody, A. 2003. A detail-preserving and flexible adaptive filter for speckle suppression in SAR imagery. International Journal of Remote Sensing 24: 2451-2465.

Meentemeyer, R.K. & Moody, A. 2002. Distribution of plant life-history types in California chaparral: The role of topographically determined drought severity. Journal of Vegetation Science 13: 67-78.

Frizzelle, B. G. & Moody, A. 2001. Mapping continuous distributions of land cover: A comparison of maximum likelihood estimation and artificial neural networks. Photogrammetric Engineering and Remote Sensing 67(6): 693-705.

Meentemeyer, R. K., Moody, A., & Franklin, J. 2001. Landscape-scale patterns of shrub species abundance in California chaparral: The role of topographically mediated resource gradients. Plant Ecology 156(1): 19-41.

Moody, A. & Johnson, D.M. 2001. Land-surface phenologies using the discrete Fourier transform. Remote Sensing of Environment 75(3): 305-323.

Moody, A. & Meentemeyer, R.K. 2001. Environmental factors influencing spatial patterns of woody plant diversity in chaparral, Santa Ynez Mountains, California. Journal of Vegetation Science 12(1): 41-52.

Meentemeyer, R. K. & Moody, A. 2000. Rapid sampling of plant species composition for assessing vegetation patterns in rugged terrain. Landscape Ecology 15(8): 697-711.

Meentemeyer, R. K. & Moody, A. 2000. Automated mapping of alignment between topography and geologic bedding planes. Computers & Geosciences 26(7): 815-829.

Moody, A. 2000. Analysis of plant species diversity in response to island characteristics on the Channel Islands, California. Journal of Biogeography 27(3): 711-724.

Moody, A. & Jones, J.A. 2000. Soil response to canopy position and feral pig disturbance beneath Quercus agrifolia on Santa Cruz Island, California. Applied Soil Ecology 14(3): 269-281.

Teaching

I teach courses in remote sensing, biogeography, and quantitative methods. My courses emphasize hands-on experience in the lab and in the field. I have recently initiated the development of a long-term ecological database for the Battle Creek watershed, a remnant urban woodlot that is adjacent to, and owned by, the University of North Carolina. Through this project, students engage in field work and GIS analysis to study the ecosystem of a relatively "natural" environment that is integrated into the human habitat.