Spatial Scaling in Ecology

Acts in what Hutchinson (1965) has called the 'ecological theatre' are played out on various scales of space and time. To understand the drama, we must view it on the appropriate scale. Plant ecologists long ago recognized the importance of sampling scale in their descriptions of the dispersion or distribution of species (e.g. Greig-Smith, 1952). However, many ecologists have behaved as if patterns and the processes that produce them are insensitive to differences in scale and have designed their studies with little explicit attention to scale. Kareiva Wiens, 1983, 1989) or about the degree of coevolution in communities (Connell, 1980; Roughgarden, 1983) may reflect the