AUTHORS: Kurt Riitters, US Department of Agriculture Forest Service
ABSTRACT: Amount and adjacency are the two most fundamental aspects of pattern. The ancient SLOSS debate exemplifies the distinction between the “amount” and the “pattern” of habitat which is often drawn from a wildlife ecology perspective. From a pattern perspective, however, amount is the most fundamental aspect of pattern simply because no other pattern metric can be interpreted independently of amount. The evidence that adjacency is the second most fundamental aspect of pattern comes from empirical tests using categorical maps and from the observation that aggregates of (most) patch-based metrics are predictable from amount and adjacency. Since categorical maps can be represented as networks, it should be no surprise that vertex size (amount) and edge connections (adjacency) are the fundamental metrics in graph theoretical representations of landscape patterns. Fractal dimensions form a third conceptual representation of patterns, but many fractal dimensions simply describe the scaling of sets of locations (amount), or distances (adjacency). The conundrum is this: if amount and adjacency are the most fundamental aspects of pattern, then how can any “new” metric be based on anything else? One possibility is to escape into the temporal dimension of pattern, wherein concepts such as a shifting landscape mosaic can bring new meanings to the same fundamental measurements. Another escape is into the scale dimensions of pattern (again), wherein previous “fractal” and “scale domain” applications have only scratched the surface of what may be possible. Time permitting, this presentation illustrates concepts with examples from recent national assessments of landscape patterns.
Monday April 9, 2018 11:45am - 12:00pm CDT
Spire Parlor