TY - JOUR
T1 - Creating multithemed ecological regions for macroscale ecology
T2 - Testing a flexible, repeatable, and accessible clustering method
AU - Cheruvelil, Kendra Spence
AU - Yuan, Shuai
AU - Webster, Katherine E.
AU - Tan, Pang Ning
AU - Lapierre, Jean François
AU - Collins, Sarah M.
AU - Fergus, C. Emi
AU - Scott, Caren E.
AU - Henry, Emily Norton
AU - Soranno, Patricia A.
AU - Filstrup, Christopher T.
AU - Wagner, Tyler
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
PY - 2017/5
Y1 - 2017/5
N2 - Understanding broad-scale ecological patterns and processes often involves accounting for regional-scale heterogeneity. A common way to do so is to include ecological regions in sampling schemes and empirical models. However, most existing ecological regions were developed for specific purposes, using a limited set of geospatial features and irreproducible methods. Our study purpose was to: (1) describe a method that takes advantage of recent computational advances and increased availability of regional and global data sets to create customizable and reproducible ecological regions, (2) make this algorithm available for use and modification by others studying different ecosystems, variables of interest, study extents, and macroscale ecology research questions, and (3) demonstrate the power of this approach for the research question—How well do these regions capture regional-scale variation in lake water quality? To achieve our purpose we: (1) used a spatially constrained spectral clustering algorithm that balances geospatial homogeneity and region contiguity to create ecological regions using multiple terrestrial, climatic, and freshwater geospatial data for 17 northeastern U.S. states (~1,800,000 km2); (2) identified which of the 52 geospatial features were most influential in creating the resulting 100 regions; and (3) tested the ability of these ecological regions to capture regional variation in water nutrients and clarity for ~6,000 lakes. We found that: (1) a combination of terrestrial, climatic, and freshwater geospatial features influenced region creation, suggesting that the oft-ignored freshwater landscape provides novel information on landscape variability not captured by traditionally used climate and terrestrial metrics; and (2) the delineated regions captured macroscale heterogeneity in ecosystem properties not included in region delineation—approximately 40% of the variation in total phosphorus and water clarity among lakes was at the regional scale. Our results demonstrate the usefulness of this method for creating customizable and reproducible regions for research and management applications.
AB - Understanding broad-scale ecological patterns and processes often involves accounting for regional-scale heterogeneity. A common way to do so is to include ecological regions in sampling schemes and empirical models. However, most existing ecological regions were developed for specific purposes, using a limited set of geospatial features and irreproducible methods. Our study purpose was to: (1) describe a method that takes advantage of recent computational advances and increased availability of regional and global data sets to create customizable and reproducible ecological regions, (2) make this algorithm available for use and modification by others studying different ecosystems, variables of interest, study extents, and macroscale ecology research questions, and (3) demonstrate the power of this approach for the research question—How well do these regions capture regional-scale variation in lake water quality? To achieve our purpose we: (1) used a spatially constrained spectral clustering algorithm that balances geospatial homogeneity and region contiguity to create ecological regions using multiple terrestrial, climatic, and freshwater geospatial data for 17 northeastern U.S. states (~1,800,000 km2); (2) identified which of the 52 geospatial features were most influential in creating the resulting 100 regions; and (3) tested the ability of these ecological regions to capture regional variation in water nutrients and clarity for ~6,000 lakes. We found that: (1) a combination of terrestrial, climatic, and freshwater geospatial features influenced region creation, suggesting that the oft-ignored freshwater landscape provides novel information on landscape variability not captured by traditionally used climate and terrestrial metrics; and (2) the delineated regions captured macroscale heterogeneity in ecosystem properties not included in region delineation—approximately 40% of the variation in total phosphorus and water clarity among lakes was at the regional scale. Our results demonstrate the usefulness of this method for creating customizable and reproducible regions for research and management applications.
KW - constrained spectral clustering
KW - ecoregions
KW - geospatial variables
KW - lake
KW - landscape
KW - macroecology
KW - macrosystems
KW - regional spatial scale
KW - regionalization
KW - spatial heterogeneity
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U2 - 10.1002/ece3.2884
DO - 10.1002/ece3.2884
M3 - Article
C2 - 28480004
AN - SCOPUS:85016217964
SN - 2045-7758
VL - 7
SP - 3046
EP - 3058
JO - Ecology and Evolution
JF - Ecology and Evolution
IS - 9
ER -