Effects of Spatial Heterogeneity on Species Richness: Methods to Quantify Spatial Heterogeneity and the Effects of Spatial Scale

Spatial heterogeneity may have differential effects on the distribution of native and nonnative plant and butterfly species and their interactions. These effects may be scale dependent and may vary for different levels of biological organizations. This book offers an approach to quantify spatial heterogeneity and spatial autocorrelation at multiple spatial scales. The book presents a case study on how to quantify spatial heterogeneity in a forested, mountainous landscape and relate it to native and nonnative plant and butterfly species richness at multiple scales. It shows that including measures of spatial heterogeneity around the sample plots with traditionally used environmental predictors can provide ecologists with an additional explanatory power. It also shows how landscape composition and configuration affect native and nonnative plant and butterfly species. This book is written for ecologists, and conservationists interested in learning how spatial heterogeneity and spatial autocorrelation affect species diversity across the landscape.