Scale problems in reporting landscape pattern at the regional scale

O’Neill, Robert V.; Hunsaker, Carolyn T.; Timmins, S.P.; Jackson, Barbara L.; Jones, K. Bruce; Riitters, Kurt H.; Wickham, James D.

doi:10.1007/bf02447515

Cited by 328 publications

(157 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…The importance of the scale has been widely recognised as it concerns all types of ecological data and is a fundamental aspect of the environmental heterogeneity, whose interpretation depends on the level of observation established when studying an ecological system (Battisti & Fanelli, 2015;Levin, 1992;O'Neill et al, 1991O'Neill et al, , 1996.…”

Section: Discussion: Lessons Learned and Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Habitats on the grid: The spatial dimension does matter for red-listing

Gigante

Foggi

Venanzoni

et al. 2016

Journal for Nature Conservation

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a b s t r a c tBesides species Red Lists, recently, a variety of frameworks have been proposed for assessing higher levels of biological organisation, i.e. ecosystems, habitats, plant communities. Most of these protocols refer to 'plant species assemblages' or 'vegetation types' as proxies for ecosystems or habitats. Indeed, the habitat concept based on plant communities has acquired a central role as a key approach for biodiversity conservation above the species level. Plant communities, like every complex biological system, hold scaledependent 'emergent' properties which vary as a function of the scale of observation. With reference to red-listing, these scale-dependent properties have far-reaching consequences for both identification and classification, as well as for representation and evaluation, and become particularly challenging when dealing with criteria regarding decline in distribution or restricted distribution. The recent discussion on the red-listing protocols has evidenced several aspects that claim special efforts for a suitable use. In the present paper, starting with the analysis of some recently proposed protocols for the red-listing of habitats and ecosystems, we discuss and test some 'emergent' properties of species assemblages, providing cues for reflection. Based on a variety of theoretical models and scientific outcomes in literature from the last decades, we theorise that plant communities own some intrinsic, ecologically based and scale-dependent spatial features, which give rise to different types of pattern of spatial occupancy. We discuss a model where, in natural conditions, the possible patterns of spatial occupancy are referred to 3 basic types: areal, linear and point. This approach is here proposed as a tool to discriminate among different broad categories of plant community-based habitat types and optimise their assessment in the red-listing process. Starting from a homogeneous data set, the proposed case studies prove that the choice of the scale affects the comprehension of the habitats' occurrence, with a substantial relapse on the estimates of their distribution size. In particular, habitats with linear and point distribution, often naturally small in size and dispersed, are more susceptible to biased evaluation of their actual distribution and consequently of their threat status. The intrinsic spatial attributes of plant communities should not be neglected in a red-listing process and claim for a 'habitat-tailored' approach. The use of different gridcell sizes and thresholds for the three main patterns of spatial occupancy here proposed, might certainly avoid inaccurate statements.

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Section: Discussion: Lessons Learned and Perspectivesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Habitats on the grid: The spatial dimension does matter for red-listing

Gigante

Foggi

Venanzoni

et al. 2016

Journal for Nature Conservation

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“…Relationships of metric responses to varying grain and extent are known to be complex, with both the metric values and distributional shape being affected ͑e.g., O'Neill et al 1996;Saura 2002;Wu et al 2002͒. For example, in an investigation involving real landscapes, Wu et al ͑2002͒ found that metrics fell into three categories of response to changing scale; responses were predictable in only one of these categories.…”

Section: Conclusion and Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Behavior of class-level landscape metrics across gradients of class aggregation and area

2004

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Habitat loss and fragmentation processes strongly affect biodiversity conservation in landscapes undergoing anthropogenic land use changes. Many attempts have been made to use landscape structure metrics to quantify the independent and joint effects of these processes. Unfortunately, ecological interpretation of those metrics has been plagued by lack of thorough understanding of their theoretical behavior. We explored behavior of 50 metrics in neutral landscapes across a 21-step gradient in aggregation and a 19-step gradient in area using a full factorial design with 100 replicates of each of the 399 combinations of the two factors to assess how well metrics reflected changes in landscape structure. Metric values from real landscapes were used to determine the extent of neutral landscape space that is represented in real landscapes. We grouped metrics into three major behavioral classes: strongly related to focal class area ͑nϭ15͒, strongly related to aggregation ͑nϭ7͒, and jointly responding to area and aggregation ͑nϭ28͒. Metrics strongly related to class area exhibited a variety of distinct behaviors, and many of these metrics have unique interpretations that make each of them particularly useful in certain applications. Metrics strongly related to aggregation, independent of class area, are particularly useful in assessing effects of fragmentation. Moreover, metrics in this group exhibited a range of specific behaviors, highlighting subtle but different aspects of landscape aggregation even though we controlled only one aspect of aggregation. The non-linear behavior exhibited by many metrics renders interpretation difficult and use of linear analytical techniques inappropriate under many circumstances. Ultimately, comprehensive characterization of landscapes undergoing habitat loss and fragmentation will require using several metrics distributed across behavioral groups.

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“…While most of the MAUP studies prior to the 1990's focused on traditional statistical measures ͑e.g., mean, variance, regression and correlation coefficients͒ and spatial interaction models, scale effects have been increasingly studied using landscape metrics ͑or indices͒ in ecology, remote sensing, and geography in the past two decades ͑Meentemeyer and Box 1987; Turner et al 1989;Turner et al 2001;Bian and Walsh 1993;Moody and Woodcock 1994;Benson and Mackenzie 1995;Wickham and Riitters 1995;Jelinski and Wu 1996;O'Neill et al 1996;Qi and Wu 1996;Wu et al 2003͒. These studies have shed new light on the problems of scale effects in pattern analysis as well as the multiscaled nature of spatial heterogeneity.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of changing scale on landscape pattern analysis: scaling relations

2004

Landscape Ecology

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Landscape pattern is spatially correlated and scale-dependent. Thus, understanding landscape structure and functioning requires multiscale information, and scaling functions are the most precise and concise way of quantifying multiscale characteristics explicitly. The major objective of this study was to explore if there are any scaling relations for landscape pattern when it is measured over a range of scales ͑grain size and extent͒. The results showed that the responses of landscape metrics to changing scale fell into two categories when computed at the class level ͑i.e., for individual land cover types͒: simple scaling functions and unpredictable behavior. Similarly, three categories were found at the landscape level, with the third being staircase pattern, in a previous study when all land cover types were combined together. In general, scaling relations were more variable at the class level than at the landscape level, and more consistent and predictable with changing grain size than with changing extent at both levels. Considering that the landscapes under study were quite diverse in terms of both composition and configuration, these results seem robust. This study highlights the need for multiscale analysis in order to adequately characterize and monitor landscape heterogeneity, and provides insights into the scaling of landscape patterns.

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Scale problems in reporting landscape pattern at the regional scale

Cited by 328 publications

References 15 publications

Habitats on the grid: The spatial dimension does matter for red-listing

Habitats on the grid: The spatial dimension does matter for red-listing

Behavior of class-level landscape metrics across gradients of class aggregation and area

Effects of changing scale on landscape pattern analysis: scaling relations

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