Which landscape metrics are most useful for monitoring population, community and ecosystem processes in large river-floodplain landscapes?
Spatially extensive field sampling will be combined with landscape analysis in six reaches of the Wisconsin River sampling to quantify the ability of landscape indicators to predict ecological variables over broad scales. Landscape indicators will be evaluated by their utility for detecting changes in the structure and function of the Wisconsin River floodplain landscape resulting from modification of the natural flow regime, historical land use, and current land-use patterns. We will evaluate how well population, community and ecosystem responses can be predicted based on landscape metrics alone versus these metrics used in concert with field measurements. Landscape metrics should work well if within-habitat variability is less than between-habitat variability. In addition, a minimum set of indicators for the condition of particular ecological resources and for the overall river-floodplain landscape will be identified, and the statistical confidence of relationships among landscape in
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