ANALYSIS OF SCALE-DEPENDENT PROCESSES WITH DIMENSIONLESS RATIOS

Awareness of the role of scale in ecological research has increased ov er the last decade but few tools have been developed to evaluate biolo gical and physical processes that generate scale-dependent biological patterns. We describe a procedure that combines demographic, growth, a nd kinematic rates to evaluate the spatial and temporal dynamics of po pulation biomass. Values of dimensionless ratios are plotted and conto ured as a function of spatial and temporal scale to summarize knowledg e of processes that generate variability in a biological quantity. Thi s summary can be used to indicate variance generating processes at any scale of interest, to identify potential research areas and appropria te sampling scales for field studies, and to limit the range of scales over which conclusions can be generalized.