Abstract
While ecologists are well aware that spatial heterogeneity is scale-dependent, a general understanding of scaling relationships of spatial pattern is still lacking. One way to improve this understanding is to systematically examine how pattern indices change with scale in real landscapes of different kinds. This study, therefore, was designed to investigate how a suite of commonly used landscape metrics respond to changing grain size, extent, and the direction of analysis (or sampling) using several different landscapes in North America. Our results showed that the responses of the 19 landscape metrics fell into three general categories: Type I metrics showed predictable responses with changing scale, and their scaling relations could be represented by simple scaling equations (linear, power-law, or logarithmic functions); Type II metrics exhibited staircase-like responses that were less predictable; and Type III metrics behaved erratically in response to changing scale, suggesting no consistent scaling relations. In general, the effect of changing grain size was more predictable than that of changing extent. Type I metrics represent those landscape features that can be readily and accurately extrapolated or interpolated across spatial scales, whereas Type II and III metrics represent those that require more explicit consideration of idiosyncratic details for successful scaling. To adequately quantify spatial heterogeneity, the metric-scalograms (the response curves of metrics to changing scale), instead of single-scale measures, seem necessary.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Atkinson P.M. 1993. The effect of spatial resolution on the experimental variogram of airborne MSS imagery. International Journal of Remote Sensing 14: 1005–1011.
Benson B.J. and Mackenzie M.D. 1995. Effects of sensor spatial resoltuion on landscape structure parameters. Landscape Ecology 10: 113–120.
Bian L. and Butler R. 1999. Comparing effects of aggregation methods on statistical and spatial properties of simulated spatial data. Photogrammatic Engineering & Remote Sensing 65: 73–84.
Buckley R.C. 1985. Distinguishing the effects of area and habitat type on island plant species richness by separating floristic elements and substrate types. Journal of Biogeography 12: 527–535.
Dale M.R.T. 1983. Spatial Pattern Analysis in Plant Ecology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK.
Frohn R.C. 1998. Remote Sensing for Landscape Ecology: New Metric Indicators for Monitoring, Modeling, and Assessment of Ecosystems. Lewis Publishers, Boca Raton, Florida, USA.
Gardner R.H. 1998. Pattern, process, and the analysis of spatial scales. In: Peterson D.L. and Parker V.T. (eds), Ecological Scale. Columbia Univ. Press, New York, New York, USA, pp. 17–34.
Gardner R.H., Milne B.T., Turner M.G. and O’Neill R.V. 1987. Neutral models for the analysis of broad-scale landscape pattern. Landscape Ecology 1: 19–28.
Greig-Smith P. 1983. Quantitative Plant Ecology. University of California Press, Berkeley, California, USA.
He F. and Legendre P. 1994. Diversity pattern and spatial scale: A study of a tropical rain forest of Malaysia. Environmental & Ecological Statistics 1: 265–286.
Jelinski D.E. and Wu J. 1996. The modifiable areal unit problem and implications for landscape ecology. Landscape Ecology 11: 129–140.
Jenerette G.D. and Wu J. 2002. Analysis and simulation of land use change in the central Arizona-Phoenix region. Landscape Ecology 16: 611–626.
Justice C.O., Markham B.L., Townshend J.R.G. and Kennard R.L. 1989. Spatial degradation of satellite data. International Journal of Remote Sensing 10: 1539–1561.
Lavorel S., Gardner R.H. and O’Neill R.V. 1993. Analysis of pattern in hierarchically structured landscapes. Oikos 67: 521–528.
Leduc A., Prairie Y.T. and Bergeron Y. 1994. Fractal dimension estimates of a fragmented landscape: Sources of variability. Landscape Ecology 9: 279–286.
Levin S.A. 1992. The problem of pattern and scale in ecology. Ecology 73: 1943–1967.
Li H. and Reynolds J.F. 1993. A new contagion index to quantify spatial patterns of landscapes. Landscape Ecology 8: 155–162.
Li H. and Reynolds J.F. 1994. A simulation experiment to quantify spatial heterogeneity in categorical maps. Ecology 75: 2446–2455.
Luck M. and Wu J. 2002. A gradient analysis of urban landscape pattern: A case study from the Phoenix Metropolitan region of USA. Landscape Ecology 17: 327–329, (accepted).
MacArthur R.H. and Wilson E.O. 1967. The Theory of Island Biogeography. Princeton Univ. Press, Princeton, New Jersey, USA.
Marceau D.J., Howarth P.J. and Gratto D.J. 1994. Remote Sensing and the measurement of geographical entities in a forested environment. 1. The scale and spatial aggregation problem. Remote Sensing of Environment 49: 93–104.
Marceau D.J. 1999. The scale issue in social and natural sciences. Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing 25: 347–356.
McGarigal K. and Marks B.J. 1995. FRAGSTATS: Spatial Pattern Analysis Program for Quantifying Landscape Structure. Gen. Tech. Rep. PNW-GTR-351. USDA-Forest Service, Portland, Oregon, USA.
Meentemeyer V. and Box E.O. 1987. Scale effects in landscape studies. In: Turner M.G. (ed.), Landscape Heterogeneity and Disturbance. Springer-Verlag, New York, New York, USA, pp. 15–34.
Moody A. and Woodcock C.E. 1995. The influence of scale and the spatial characteristics of landscapes on land-cover mapping using remote sensing. Landscape Ecology 10: 363–379.
O’Neill R.V., Gardner R.H., Milne B.T., Turner M.G. and Jackson B. 1991. Heterogeneity and Spatial Hierarchies. In: Kolasa J. and Pickett S.T.A. (eds), Ecological Heterogeneity. Springer-Verlag, New York, New York, USA, pp. 85–96.
O’Neill R.V., Hunsaker C.T., Timmins S.P., Timmins B.L., Jackson K.B., Jones K.B. et al. 1996. Scale problems in reporting landscape pattern at the regional scale. Landscape Ecology 11: 169–180.
O’Neill R.V., Krummel J.R., Gardner R.H., Sugihara G., Jackson B., DeAngelis D.L. et al. 1988. Indices of landscape pattern. Landscape Ecology 1: 153–162.
Openshaw S. 1984. The Modifiable Areal Unit Problem. Geo Books, Norwich, UK.
Qi Y. and Wu J. 1996. Effects of changing spatial resolution on the results of landscape pattern analysis using spatial autocorrelation indices. Landscape Ecology 11: 39–49.
Riitters K.H., O’Neill R.V., Hunsaker C.T., Wickham J.D., Yankee D.H., Timmins K.B.J. et al. 1995. A factor analysis of landscape pattern and structure metrics. Landscape Ecology 10: 23–39.
Riitters K.H., O’Neill R.V., Wickham J.D. and Jones K.B. 1996. A note on contagion indices for landscape analysis. Landscape Ecology 11: 197–202.
Saura S. and Martinez-Millan J. 2001. Sensitivity of landscape pattern metrics to map spatial extent. Photogrammatic Engineering & Remote Sensing 67: 1027–1036.
Turner M.G. 1989. Landscape ecology: The Effect of pattern on process. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 20: 171–197.
Turner M.G., Gardner R.H. and O’Neill R.V. 2001. Landscape Ecology in Theory and Practice: Pattern and Process. Springer-Verlag, New York, New York, USA.
Turner M.G., O’Neill R.V., Gardner R.H. and Milne B.T. 1989. Effects of changing spatial scale on the analysis of landscape pattern. Landscape Ecology 3: 153–162.
Wickham J.D. and Riitters K.H. 1995. Sensitivity of landscape metrics to pixel size. Int. J. Rem. Sens. 16: 3585–3595.
Wiens J.A. 1989. Spatial scaling in ecology. Functional Ecology 3: 385–397.
Williamson M. 1988. Relationship of species number to area, distance and other variables. In: Myers A.A. and Giller P.S. (eds), Analytical Biogeography. Chapman and Hall, London, UK, pp. 91–115.
Woodcock C.E. and Strahler A.H. 1987. The factor of scale in remote sensing. Remote Sensing of Environment 21: 311–332.
Wu J. 1999. Hierarchy and scaling: Extrapolating information along a scaling ladder. Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing 25: 367–380.
Wu J., Jelinski D.E., Luck M. and Tueller P.T. 2000. Multiscale analysis of landscape heterogeneity: Scale variance and pattern metrics. Geographical Information Systems 6: 6–19.
Wu J. and Levin S.A. 1994. A spatial patch dynamic modeling approach to pattern and process in an annual grassland. Ecological Monographs 64: 447–464.
Wu J. and Loucks O.L. 1995. From balance-of-nature to hierarchical patch dynamics: A paradigm shift in ecology. Quarterly Review of Biology 70: 439–466.
Wu J. and Vankat J.L. 1991. A System Dynamics model of island biogeography. Bulletin of Mathematical Biology 53: 911–940.
Wu J. and Vankat J.L. 1995. Island biogeography: Theory and applications. In: Nierenberg W.A. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Environmental Biology. Academic Press, San Diego, California, USA, pp. 371–379.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wu, J., Shen, W., Sun, W. et al. Empirical patterns of the effects of changing scale on landscape metrics. Landscape Ecol 17, 761–782 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022995922992
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1022995922992