Detecting Ecological Patterns Along Environmental Gradients: Alpine Treeline Ecotones

Abstract

Everyone is familiar with that age-old adage: "a picture is worth a thousand words". Among ecologists, the word "picture" easily could be replaced with the word "pattern", although the significance remains the same: the pattern we observe in a single snapshot more than sums up what could be expressed if we tried to describe all the original events that led to the pattern. One particular class of patterns, spatial patterns, are the backbone of much contemporary ecological research. [...]