Homogenization paper in Methods in Ecology and Evolution

Bridging the scale gap has appeared.

On homogenization methods in ecology. With Christina Cobbold and Brian Yurk

  1. Often, ecologists are challenged with a mismatch of scales: how do we up-scale from local variation and available data to landscape-level models and predictions?
  2. We present a general recipe for coarse-graining from local to landscape-scale reaction-diffusion equations when spatial heterogeneity is small in extent compared to dispersal of organisms. Our homogenization approach uses the fundamental ecological concepts of Turchin’s residence index and Skellam’s dynamic level.
  3. Our approach opens avenues to new ecological theory that connects different scales, which we illustrate using predator-prey interactions. It also presents opportunities for using the increasingly available small-scale data for landscape-level predictions, such as range expansion rates.
  4. We find several unexpected nonlinear relationships between the movement behavior on the local level and the spatially implicit and explicit outcomes at the landscape-level, e.g., predator spread rate may increase or decrease when predators move faster locally. Our method provides a mechanistic link for population dynamics and data integration across spatial and temporal scales, addressing a fundamental goal of landscape ecology.