Spatial patterns of aquatic habitat richness in the Upper Mississippi River floodplain, USA

Floodplain complexity and surface metrics: Influences of scale and geomorphology

“…This confirms that floodplain landscape patterns may exist van Coller et al, 2000;Wiens, 2002). The spatial organisation of landscape patterns can indicate the nature of structuring processes and can have ecological consequences (Turner and Gardner, 1990;Holling, 1992;De Jager and Rohweder, 2012). Patchiness in floodplain surface conditions might indicate that positive hydrogeomorphic feedback loops exist, which reinforce a particular surface morphology once it has been established.…”

Measuring floodplain spatial patterns using continuous surface metrics at multiple scales

“…This hypothesis emphasizes continual local restructuring of landscape patches or components while the overall assemblage of structural components throughout the floodplain is maintained. Departures from power scaling might indicate scales at which significant human interference has altered the overall structure of the floodplain (Zurlini et al, 2007;De Jager and Rohweder, 2012); that is, the steady state has been affected. Scale breaks in power functions applied to aquatic habitat richness have been reported in the Upper Mississippi River and related to loss of aquatic habitat in some areas (De Jager and Rohweder, 2012).…”

An index of floodplain surface complexity

“…These data are useful for measuring floodplain surface complexity. Lidar-derived digital elevation models (DEMs) of floodplain surfaces can be used to measure the character and variability of surface features using a suite of surface metrics (McGarigal et al, 2009) and moving window analyses (Bar Massada and Radeloff, 2010;De Jager and Rohweder, 2012). The spatial organisation of these features can then be measured using spatial correlograms and geostatistical models (Rossi et al, 1992).…”