JSM 2004 - Toronto

Abstract #300041

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Activity Number: 366
Type: Invited
Date/Time: Wednesday, August 11, 2004 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
Sponsor: ENAR
Abstract - #300041
Title: How to Determine Cohesive Ecological Boundaries
Author(s): Marie-Josee Fortin*+ and Ferenc Csillag and Mathieu Philibert
Companies: University of Toronto and University of Toronto and Institut national de santé publique du Québec
Address: Dept. of Zoology, Toronto, ON, M5S 3G5, Canada
Keywords: boundary detection ; forest ; randomization tests ; spatial autocorrelation ; scaling ; sampling
Abstract:

In ecology, the development of boundary detection methods has a long tradition in the studies associated to ecotone's delineation and forest edge effects. The ecological and statistical question is, however: what is a cohesive boundary? Indeed, while a boundary can be operationally defined as the spatial location where the highest rate of change occurs, the problem is to determine how high is high enough. Boundary membership is usually determined using an arbitrary threshold. In ecological landscapes, however, the strength of boundaries is affected by sampling design issues (e.g., number of sampling locations and their spacing) as well as the presence of spatial autocorrelation within patches. To maximize the detection of among-patch boundaries, it is recommended to carry out boundaries detection at several spatial resolutions. Such scaling procedures allow identification of the degree of boundaries' persistency across scales to be found. This procedure is illustrated with both simulated landscapes data and forestry data.

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