Thomas W. Hoekstra

Role of heterogeneity in scaling of ecological systems under analysis

This chapter addresses heterogeneity in the context of scale. Scale is emerging as one of the critical problems that must be adequately considered if different ecological studies are to be either compared in a corroboration or contrasted in a refutation. Some argument in the ecological literature is misdirected because the contentions are differently scaled and so are not competitive (e.g., Belsky, 1986, 1987 versus McNaughton, 1985,1986, as discussed in Brown and Allen, 1989). Disparately scaled ecological situations cannot be compared in any simple way, even if superficially it appears that it is the same community or site that is being addressed.