Neutral models and the deviation from neutral pattern metric

Ecological variables are inherently spatial with arrangement on the landscape often directly attributed to underlying processes. Historically, assumptions regarding the relationships among scale, pattern, and process have been used to characterize landscapes as well as compare multiple landscapes or changes in landscapes over time. Despite the utility of landscape comparisons, they often fail to adequately link scale, pattern, or process, and far too frequently are presented as logical interpretations leading to prediction of pattern to process relationships. Pattern metrics and measures of spatial autocorrelation have evolved to characterize and model landscape phenomena. Unfortunately, the two are quite often misapplied. This research presents an alternative metric, Deviation from Neutral (DFN), which permits the comparison of multiple landscapes.