A Multiscale Ecological Model for Allocation of Training Activities on U.S. Army Installations

An understanding of ecological processes at multiple scales is important in making sound evaluations of the effects of management practices for natural resources. Hierarchical approaches to these processes should be able to link these processes across multiple scales into simulation models of community and landscape dynamics (Urban et al. 1987; Pickett et al. 1987). In recent years, considerable progress has been made in landscape ecological analysis of spatial patterns in order to make inferences on spatial processes (Cale et al. 1989; Turner 1990; Turner and Gardner 1991), and on hierarchically structured landscapes in particular (Lavorel et al. 1993). A complementary approach is to examine processes to determine their effects on resulting spatial patterns; this is the approach taken in simulation modeling of landscapes (Gardner et al. 1987; Gardner and O'Neill 1991). “Because landscape ecology explicitly considers spatial heterogeneity, it follows that models of population dynamics in a landscape context, even those that include only simple dynamics, are analytically intractable. A possible alternative is the use of simulation models” (Fahrig 1991). Both approaches are valuable in establishing the connections between pattern and process at all spatial scales.