Scale-Dependence of Species Richness
Maps
David M. Stoms
The Professional Geographer, 46: 346-358.
Mapping patterns of species
richness is a longstanding tradition in biogeography and more recently
in conservation planning. This paper describes the effects of sampling
unit size on patterns of vertebrate richness across landscapes in
the Intermountain Sagebrush and Rocky Mountain Forest ecoregions in
Idaho. Variability of richness decreased with increasing size of the
spatial sampling units at both sites, with greater overall variability
in the forested site. Richness in the sagebrush region was best explained
by alpha diversity, whereas beta diversity accounted for more of the
variability in richness in the forested site.