Nebraska Cooperative Fish & Wildlife Research Unit
Date of this Version
1999
Abstract
Scale-specific patterns of resource distribution on landscapes entrain attributes of resident animal communities such that species body-mass distributions are organized into distinct aggregations. Species within each aggregation respond to resources over the same range of scale. This discontinuous pattern has predictive power: invasive species and extinct or declining species in landscapes subject to human transformation tend to be located at the edge of body-mass aggregations (P < 0.01), which may be transition zones between distinct ranges of scale. Location at scale breaks affords species great opportunity, but also potential crisis.
Comments
Published in Ecosystems (1999) 2: 114–121