Key elements of landscape pattern measures

Describing patterns in the landscape and interpreting the effects of these patterns on flora, fauna, and other factors has been of long-standing inter est. Many descriptors have been developed, and these aggregate factors into a single index. The identical numerical result for a multifactor index can be attained by using an array of very different values. We list six import ant factors for describing a mapped area: the area, the classes, proportion of dominant class, number of polygons, polygon size variance, and elevatio n range and suggest that these and their map statistics will encompass most of the observed phenomena associated with things perceived as land pattern .