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

景观格局和过程之间的相互作用是复杂而相互的，理解它们之间的关系往往需要对异质性的重要时空特性进行量化。迄今为止，生态学空间格局的大部分量化都集中在景观指标上，即从二维栅格图像计算的值，通常代表土地覆盖或土地利用。然而，这些措施并不是地球系统科学分析的灵丹妙药，它们的应用是困难的，部分原因是缺乏令人满意的统计和地理背景。然而，理解模式的必要性仍然存在。

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.