GIS and Remote Sensing Unit at FEM-CRI

Duccio Rocchini

ducciorocchini[at]gmail.com

I am coming from the BioConNet group of Alessandro Chiarucci at the University of Siena who introduced me to the language of science in numbers... I am currently a Post-Doc of the Markus Neteler's mega-great GIS & RS group! Our motto is:

"We think spatial!" (Neteler ™)!

I am devoted to all aspects of Spatial Ecology!

Here are my main interests:

• Ecological heterogeneity and biodiversity estimate by satellite imagery
• Change detection of spatial patterns and generating ecological processes
• Statistical analysis of spatial and ecological data
• Fuzzy set theory and land use mapping

Herewith find my complete CV.

I am currently Editor of the following journals

Here are THE MOST AMUSING pubs of my life:

• Rocchini, D., Balkenhol, N., Carter, G.A., Foody, G.M., Gillespie, T.W., He, K.S., Kark, S., Levin, N., Lucas, K., Luoto, M., Nagendra, H., Oldeland, J., Ricotta, C., Southworth, J., Neteler, M. (2010). Remotely sensed spectral heterogeneity as a proxy of species diversity: recent advances and open challenges. Ecological Informatics, in press. [PDF]
• Gillespie, T.W., Foody, G.M., Rocchini, D., Giorgi, A.P., Saatchi, S. (2008). Measuring and modeling biodiversity from space. Progress in Physical Geography, 32: 203-221. [PDF]
• Rocchini, D. (2007). Effects of spatial and spectral resolution in estimating ecosystem a-diversity by satellite imagery. Remote Sensing of Environment, 111: 423-434. [PDF]
• Rocchini, D., Andreini Butini, S., Chiarucci, A. (2005). Maximizing plant species inventory efficiency by means of remotely sensed spectral distances. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 14: 431-437. [PDF]

and the list of peer-reviewed international papers

1. Rocchini, D., Hortal, J., Lengyel, S., Lobo, J.M., Jiménez-Valverde, A., Ricotta, C., Bacaro, G., Chiarucci, A. (2010). Accounting for uncertainty when mapping species distributions: the need for maps of ignorance. Accepted by Progress in Physical Geography.
2. Amici, V., Geri, F., Csontos, P., Neteler, M:, Rocchini, D. (2010). Fuzzy and boolean forest membership: on the actual separability of land cover classes. Applied Ecology and Environmental Research, 8: 39-50. [PDF]
3. Rocchini, D., Balkenhol, N., Carter, G.A., Foody, G.M., Gillespie, T.W., He, K.S., Kark, S., Levin, N., Lucas, K., Luoto, M., Nagendra, H., Oldeland, J., Ricotta, C., Southworth, J., Neteler, M. (2010). Remotely sensed spectral heterogeneity as a proxy of species diversity: recent advances and open challenges. Ecological Informatics, in press. [DOI | PDF]
4. Rocchini, D., Neteler, M. (2010). Spectral rank-abundance for measuring landscape diversity. Accepted by International Journal of Remote Sensing.
5. Ricotta, C., Godefroid, S., Rocchini, D. (2010). Invasiveness of Brussels alien plants is related to their phylogenetic similarity to native species.  Diversity and Distributions, 16: 655-662. [DOI | PDF]
6. Nagendra, H., Rocchini, D., Ghate, R. (2010). Beyond parks as monoliths: Spatially differentiating park-people relationships in the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve in India. Biological Conservation , in press [DOI | PDF].
7. Rocchini, D. (2010). Mathematical Ecology of Populations and Ecosystems by J. Pastor. Book Review. Ecoscience, 17: 226-227. (IF: 1.117) [PDF]
8. Nagendra, H., Rocchini, D., Ghate, R., Sharma, B., Pareeth, S. (2010). Assessing plant diversity in a dry tropical forest: comparing the utility of Landsat and IKONOS satellite images. Remote Sensing, 2: 478-496. [DOI | PDF]
9. Rocchini, D., He, K.S., Oldeland, J., Wesuls, D., Neteler, M. (2010). Spectral variation versus species beta-diversity at different spatial scales: a test in African highland savannas. Journal of Environmental Monitoring, 12: 825-831. [DOI | PDF]
10. Rocchini, D., Vannini, A. (2010). What is up? Testing spectral heterogeneity vs. NDVI relationship by quantile regression. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 31: 2745–2756. [DOI | PDF]
11. Geri, F., Rocchini, D., Chiarucci, A. (2010). Landscape metrics and topographical determinants of large-scale forest dynamics in a Mediterranean landscape. Landscape and Urban Planning, 95: 46-53. [DOI | PDF]
12. Geri, F., Amici, V., Rocchini, D. (2010). Human activity impact on the heterogeneity of a Mediterranean landscape. Applied Geography, 30: 370–379. [DOI | PDF]
13. Rocchini, D. (2010). While Boolean sets non-gently rip: a theoretical framework on fuzzy sets for mapping landscape patterns. Ecological Complexity, 7:125-129. [DOI | PDF]
14. Oldeland, J., Wesuls, D., Rocchini, D., Schmidt, M., Norbert, J. (2010). Does using species abundance data improve estimates of species diversity from remotely sensed spectral heterogeneity? Ecological Indicators, 10: 390-396.. [DOI | PDF]
15. Santi, E., Maccherini, S., Rocchini, D., Bonini, I., Brunialti, G., Favilli, L., Perini, C., Pezzo, F., Piazzini, S., Rota, E., Salerni, E., Chiarucci, A. (2010). Simple to sample: vascular plants as surrogate group in a nature reserve. Journal for Nature Conservation, 18: 2-11. [DOI | PDF]
16. Ricotta, C., Godefroid, S., Rocchini, D. (2010). Patterns of native and exotic species richness in the urban flora of Brussels: rejecting the “rich get richer” model. Biological Invasions, 12: 33-40. [DOI | PDF]
17. Rocchini, D., He, K.S., Zhang, J. (2009). Is spectral distance a proxy of beta diversity at different taxonomic ranks? A test using quantile regression. Ecological Informatics, 4: 254-259. [DOI | PDF]
18. Chiarucci, A., Bacaro, G., Rocchini, D., Ricotta, C., Palmer, M.W., Scheiner, S.M. (2009). Spatially Constrained Rarefaction: incorporating the autocorrelated structure of biological communities in sample-based rarefaction. Community Ecology, 10: 209-214. [PDF]
19. Rocchini, D. (2009). Commentary on Krishnaswamy et al. - Quantifying and mapping biodiversity and ecosystem services: Utility of a multi-season NDVI based Mahalanobis distance surrogate. Remote Sensing of Environment, 113: 904-906. [DOI | PDF]
20. Rocchini, D., Nagendra, H., Ghate, R., Cade, B.S. (2009). Spectral distance decay: assessing species beta-diversity by quantile regression. Photogrammetric Engineering & Remote Sensing, 75: 1225–1230. [PDF]
21. Imre, A., Rocchini, D. (2009). Explicitly accounting for pixel dimension in calculating classical and fractal landscape shape metrics. Acta Biotheoretica, 57: 349-360. [DOI | PDF]
22. Rocchini, D. (2009). Algorithmic foundation of spectral rarefaction for measuring satellite imagery heterogeneity at multiple spatial scales. Sensors, 9: 303-310. [DOI | PDF]
23. Rocchini, D., Ricotta, C., Chiarucci, A., De Dominicis, V., Cirillo, I., Maccherini, S. (2009). Relating spectral and species diversity through rarefaction curves. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 30, 2705-2711. [DOI | PDF]
24. Rocchini, D., Marignani, M., Bacaro, G., Chiarucci, A., Ferretti, M., De Dominicis, V., Maccherini, S. (2008). Multi-scale sampling and statistical linear estimators to assess land use status and change. Applied Vegetation Science, 12: 225-236. [DOI | PDF]
25. Nagendra, H., Rocchini, D. (2008). Satellite imagery applied to biodiversity study in the tropics: the devil is in the detail. Biodiversity and Conservation, 17: 3431-3442. [DOI | PDF]
26. Rocchini, D., Wohlgemuth, T., Ghisleni, S., Chiarucci, A. (2008). Spectral rarefaction: linking ecological variability and plant species diversity. Community Ecology, 9: 169-176. [DOI | PDF]
27. Chiarucci, A., Bacaro, G., Vannini, A., Rocchini, D. (2008). Species diversity indicators in the Natura2000 network. Community Ecology, 9: 185-192. [DOI | PDF]
28. Chiarucci, A., Bacaro, G., Rocchini, D. (2008). Quantifying plant species diversity in a Natura 2000 Network: old ideas and new proposals. Biological Conservation, 141: 2608-2618. [DOI | PDF]
29. Chiarucci, A., Bacaro, G., Rocchini, D., Fattorini, L. (2008). Discovering and … rediscovering the rarefaction formula in ecological literature. Community Ecology, 9: 121-123. [DOI | PDF]
30. Rocchini, D., Cade, B.S. (2008). Quantile regression applied to spectral distance decay. IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters, 5: 640-643. [DOI | PDF]
31. Gillespie, T.W., Foody, G.M., Rocchini, D., Giorgi, A.P., Saatchi, S. (2008). Measuring and modeling biodiversity from space. Progress in Physical Geography, 32: 203-221. [DOI | PDF]
32. Bacaro, G., Rocchini, D., Bonini, I., Marignani, M., Maccherini, S., Chiarucci, A. (2008). Ecological determinants of plant species richness at local scale in Mediterranean forests. Plant Biosystems, 142: 630-642. [DOI | PDF
33. Rocchini, D. (2008). Theory of reflectance and emittance spectroscopy, by B. Hapke, Book Review. The Photogrammetric Record, 23: 241. [DOI | PDF]
34. Marignani, M., Maccherini, S., Rocchini, D., Chiarucci, A., Torri, D. (2008). Planning restoration in a cultural landscape in Italy using object –based approach and historical analysis. Landscape and Urban Planning, 84: 28-37. [DOI | PDF]
35. Csontos, P., Rocchini, D., Bacaro, G. (2007). Modelling factors affecting litter mass components of pine stands. Community Ecology, 8: 247-256. [DOI | PDF]
36. Rocchini, D. (2007). Effects of spatial and spectral resolution in estimating ecosystem a-diversity by satellite imagery. Remote Sensing of Environment, 111: 423-434. [DOI | PDF]
37. Rocchini, D., Ricotta, C., Chiarucci, A. (2007). Using remote sensing to assess plant species richness: the role of multispectral systems. Applied Vegetation Science, 10: 325-332. [PDF]
38. Baffetta, F., Bacaro, G., Fattorini, L., Rocchini, D., Chiarucci, A. (2007). Using nested plot design to obtain unbiased estimates of species richness. Community Ecology, 8: 119-127. [DOI | PDF]
39. Rocchini, D., Ricotta, C. (2007). Are landscapes as crisp as we may think? Ecological Modelling, 204: 535-539. [DOI | PDF]
40. Rocchini, D. (2007). Distance decay in spectral space in analysing ecosystem b-diversity. International Journal of Remote Sensing, 28: 2635-2644. [DOI | PDF]
41. Gerosa, G., Ferretti, M., Bussotti, F., Rocchini, D. (2007). An empirical method to estimate ozone AOT40 from passive sampling in forest sites in South-Western Europe. Environmental Pollution, 145: 629-635. [DOI | PDF]
42. Rocchini, D., Perry, G.L.W., Salerno, M., Maccherini, S., Chiarucci, A. (2006). Landscape change and the dynamics of open formations in a natural reserve. Landscape and Urban Planning, 77: 167-177. [DOI | PDF]
43. Rocchini, D. (2006). GI pioneers come back again. Book review of Longley et al. (2005), Geographic Information Systems and Science, 2nd edition. ISPRS Highlights, 11: 73-74. [DOI | PDF]
44. Rocchini, D., Cateni, C. (2006). On the measure of spatial centroid in Geography. Asian Journal of Information Technology, 5: 729-731. [PDF]
45. Rocchini, D., Andreini Butini, S., Chiarucci, A. (2005). Maximizing plant species inventory efficiency by means of remotely sensed spectral distances. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 14: 431-437. [DOI | PDF]
46. Rocchini, D., Di Rita, A. (2005). Relief effects on aerial photos geometric correction. Applied Geography, 25: 159-168. TOP 25 DOWNLOADED ARTICLES FROM October 2005 to July 2006. [DOI | PDF]
47. Rocchini, D. (2005). Resolution problems in calculating landscape metrics. Journal of Spatial Science, 50: 25-36. [PDF]
48. Rocchini, D. (2005). RS as Rubbish Sensing? A reply from a landscape ecologist. The Photogrammetric Record, 20: 404-406. [DOI | PDF]
49. Rocchini, D., Chiarucci, A., Loiselle, S.A. (2004). Testing the Spectral Variation Hypothesis by using satellite multispectral images. Acta Oecologica, 26: 117-120. [DOI | PDF]
50. Rocchini, D. (2004). Misleading information from direct interpretation of geometrically incorrect aerial photographs. The Photogrammetric Record, 19: 138-148. [DOI | PDF]
51. Salerni E., Perini C., Rocchini D., Laganà A., De Dominicis V. (2003). The Italian check-list of macrofungi: distribution of selected target species in Siena province, Italy. Mycotaxon, 86: 123-147.
52. Chiarucci A., Rocchini D., Leonzio C., De Dominicis V. (2001). A test of vegetation-environment relationship in serpentine soils of Tuscany, Italy. Ecological Research, 16 (4). 627-639. [DOI | PDF]

The complete list of pubs including Congress Proceedings and Extended Abstract can be found here:  complete CV.