- Yang, Bo;
- Hawthorne, Timothy L;
- Aoki, Lillian;
- Beatty, Deanna S;
- Copeland, Tyler;
- Domke, Lia K;
- Eckert, Ginny L;
- Gomes, Carla P;
- Graham, Olivia J;
- Harvell, C Drew;
- Hovel, Kevin A;
- Hessing‐Lewis, Margot;
- Harper, Leah;
- Mueller, Ryan S;
- Rappazzo, Brendan;
- Reshitnyk, Luba;
- Stachowicz, John J;
- Tomas, Fiona;
- Duffy, J Emmett
Declines in eelgrass, an important and widespread coastal habitat, are associated with wasting disease in recent outbreaks on the Pacific coast of North America. This study presents a novel method for mapping and predicting wasting disease using Unoccupied Aerial Vehicle (UAV) with low-altitude autonomous imaging of visible bands. We conducted UAV mapping and sampling in intertidal eelgrass beds across multiple sites in Alaska, British Columbia, and California. We designed and implemented a UAV low-altitude mapping protocol to detect disease prevalence and validated against in situ results. Our analysis revealed that green leaf area index derived from UAV imagery was a strong and significant (inverse) predictor of spatial distribution and severity of wasting disease measured on the ground, especially for regions with extensive disease infection. This study highlights a novel, efficient, and portable method to investigate seagrass disease at landscape scales across geographic regions and conditions.