I am studying the effect of landscape anthropization on insects communities. Can anyone tell me which landscape characteristics I should consider and how I can go about it? I want to analyze a satellite photo of the region and find four sites reflecting anthropization gradient.
Dear Mubenga, The universe of landscape indices is pretty large. My advice would be to remain simple and use indices that can be easely related to ecological processes. One of the most common software to compute landscape indices is Fragstat (freeware). Based on your indication, you'll have to produce a classified map from your satellite images with classes relevant to your species and topics. Usually anthropization is linked with built areas, roads and agricultural land uses.
A classical index would be the zonal density of anthropized land covers, aggregation index or distance to nearest anthropized patches. Number of patches, diversity and fragmentations related indices could also be used.
Dear Mubenga,
Many indices can provide the answers. You can apply fragmentation indices, such as number of patches, average size of patches, size, edges, and even the diversity index of types of uses, such as the Shannon index. Use the Patch Analyst tool of ArcGIS, she has presented interesting results to evaluate landscapes.
Many thanks Vivian. My email address is [email protected]. I would appreciated very much keeping in touch with you on younr private mail.
Dear Mubenga, The universe of landscape indices is pretty large. My advice would be to remain simple and use indices that can be easely related to ecological processes. One of the most common software to compute landscape indices is Fragstat (freeware). Based on your indication, you'll have to produce a classified map from your satellite images with classes relevant to your species and topics. Usually anthropization is linked with built areas, roads and agricultural land uses.
A classical index would be the zonal density of anthropized land covers, aggregation index or distance to nearest anthropized patches. Number of patches, diversity and fragmentations related indices could also be used.
Dear Mubenga, I agree with Philip advice. You can read an interesting paper "Landscape metrics and indices: an overview of their use in landscape research". The aim of this overview paper is to analyze the use of various landscape metrics and landscape indices for the characterization of landscape structure concerning biodiversity and habitat analysis.
http://landscaperesearch.livingreviews.org/Articles/lrlr-2009-1/download/lrlr-2009-1Color.pdf
Many thanks Luis for reply.
Looking forwards to discussing more with you.
Regards
Dear Philip, thank you very much for your assistance.
All the best.
Dear Philip,
I am really sorry. I could not timely acknoledge your reply to my question. From the three replies, I have retained metrics like agricultural land uses proportions and diversity (Shannon), number of patches, and average patch size.
Thank you for your advice
To look for something really new in quantifying and mapping landscape effects on organisms I would suggest to see "Landscape patterns from mathematical morphology on maps with contagion" from K.H. Riitters et al. Landscape Ecol, Vol. 24: 699-709.
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