Understanding relationships between landscape patterns and processes: interpreting results from multiple spatial scales in real-world data sources

景观之间的格局和过程的相互作用是复杂和相互的，理解它们的关系通常需要对异质性的重要空间和时间特性进行量化。到目前为止，生态学中空间格局的大部分量化都集中在景观度量上，即从通常代表土地覆盖或土地利用的二维栅格图像计算的值。然而，这些措施并不是地球系统科学分析的灵丹妙药，它们的应用很困难，部分原因是缺乏令人满意的统计和地理背景。然而，理解模式仍然是当务之急。

Interactions of pattern and process across landscapes are complex and reciprocal, and understanding their relationship often requires the quantification of important spatial and temporal properties of heterogeneity. Much of the quantification of spatial pattern in ecology to date has focused on landscape metrics, values computed from two-dimensional raster images typically representing land cover or land use. These measures, however, are not a panacea for earth system science analysis, and their application is difficult, in part because satisfactory statistical and geographic context is lacking. Yet the imperative to understand patterns remains.