Scaling patterns and processes across landscapes

In cartography, scale represents the level of reduction of the real dimensions of the earth and may be absolute or relative. In ecology, the scale is a fundamental concept. In fact, organisms intermingle with the environment using an inherent perception of the surroundings (Powell 1989; Steele 1989). Most of the ecological phenomena show a scale-dependence of measurement and recently, Horne & Scheneider (1995) have reviewed the role of spatial variance in ecology. Although the scaling concept has been used for a long time in ecological research, a special emphasis has been devoted by the plant ecologists (Cain 1943; Cain & Castro 1959; Greig-Smith 1964; Mueller-Dombois & Ellemberg 1974). And, more recently, the concept of spatio-temporal scale has been used as a discriminatory element of complicated processes as the extinction and the recolonization for the formulation of island biographical models (MacArthur & Wilson 1967) and the phenological dynamics of organisms that flow in the atmosphere like viruses, bacteria, pollen, spores, weed seeds, aphids, butterflies and moths and birds (Gage et al. 1999).