[1] This is due to various energy inputs, disturbances, and species interactions that result in spatially patchy structures or gradients.
This spatial variance in the environment creates diversity in communities of organisms, as well as in the variety of the observed biological and ecological events.
Ideally, this would be accomplished beforehand via a benchmark spatial survey, which would determine whether the pattern or process is on a local, regional, or global scale.
This is rare in actual field research, however, due to the lack of time and funding, as well as the ever-changing nature of such widely-studied organisms such as insects and wildlife.
[4] With detailed information about a species' life-stages, dynamics, demography, movement, behavior, etc., models of spatial pattern may be developed to estimate and predict events in unsampled locations.
[1] In the past quarter century, ecologists have begun to recognize the degree to which organisms respond to spatial patterns in their environment.
[3] Also, the repeated use of remotely sensed imagery and geographic information systems in a particular area has led to increased analysis and identification of spatial patterns over time.
In part as a reaction to this knowledge, and partially due to increasingly sophisticated theoretical developments, ecologists began stressing the importance of spatial context in research.
[citation needed] The practical use of spatial ecology concepts is essential to understanding the consequences of fragmentation and habitat loss for wildlife.
Understanding the response of a species to a spatial structure provides useful information in regards to biodiversity conservation and habitat restoration.
[17] She considered instead of the nearest neighbors the distance between an organism and a set of pre-chosen random points within the sampling area, again assuming a constant density.
Montford in 1961 showed that when the density is estimated rather than a known constant, this version of alpha tended to overestimate the actual degree of aggregation.