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The effect of spatial scale on evenness
Author(s) -
Wilson J. Bastow,
Steel John B.,
King Warren McG.,
Gitay Habiba
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of vegetation science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.1
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1654-1103
pISSN - 1100-9233
DOI - 10.2307/3237181
Subject(s) - species evenness , vegetation (pathology) , biomass (ecology) , spatial ecology , abundance (ecology) , ecology , common spatial pattern , arid , environmental science , spatial heterogeneity , spatial distribution , species richness , mathematics , biology , statistics , medicine , pathology
. The effect of spatial scale on species evenness has not previously been investigated. As the area of each sample of vegetation (i.e. the spatial grain) increases, evenness could in theory increase, decrease, or stay the same, though the simplest model predicts an increase. We use biomass data from four dune slack sites and two semi‐arid grasslands, sampled to allow calculation of evenness at a range of spatial grains. In all six sites, evenness decreases as grain size increases, almost monotonically. It is hypothesized that such a pattern is a result of a general feature of plant species abundance distributions and of vegetation response to environmental microheterogeneity.