EXTRAPOLATING SPECIES ABUNDANCE ACROSS SPATIAL SCALES

The analysis, measurement, and management of species abundance is cent ral to ecology and conservation biology, but it has proved difficult t o find a single index that adequately reflects the commonness or rarit y of species across a range of spatial scales. Here, a scale-independe nt measure of species abundance is developed, using presence-absence m aps at varying spatial resolutions. By extrapolating such ''scale-area '' curves, species abundance can be estimated accurately even at scale s finer than those used to parameterize the model, a task that had pre viously been deemed impossible in principle.