Spatial scaling: Its analysis and effects on animal movements in semiarid landscape mosaics

The research conducted under this agreement focused in general on the effects of envirorunental heterogeneity on movements of animals and materials in semiarid grassland landscapes, on the form of scale-dependency of ecological patterns and processes, and on approaches to extrapolating among spatial scales. The findings are summarized in a series of published and unpublished papers that are included as the main body of this report. We demonstrated the value of experimental model systems'' employing observations and experiments conducted in small-scale microlandscapes to test concepts relating to flows of individuals and materials through complex, heterogeneous mosaics. We used fractal analysis extensively in this research, and showed how fractal measures can produce insights and lead,to questions that do not emerge from more traditional scale-dependent measures. We developed new concepts and theory to deal with scale-dependency in ecological systems and with integrating individual movement patterns into considerations of population and ecosystem dynamics.