Correlations between forest stand diversity and landscape pattern in Otepää Nature Park, Estonia

A weak trend appeared for more diverse forest stands to be located in more diverse landscapes according to the base map. Forest stand diversity is also higher on steeper slopes and in places surrounded by slopes of varying steepness. The correlation between landscape diversity and biodiversity depends on the radius of the kernel in which landscape characteristics are calculated. Evidence of an indicative neighbourhood could be seen in many spatial relationships. The spatial correlation between stand diversity and indices calculated from the base map was most visible at distances ranging from 400 to 500 m; surface elevation and its variation correlates with stand diversity at distances of 100-200 m. Some relationships between forest diversity and landscape diversity that had a different sign of correlation in proximate and distant kernels can be interpreted as a need to standardise local landscape indices with the index values in a wider neighbourhood as a reference.