Divergent small-scale spatial patterns in New Zealand’s short tussock grasslands

>Spatial studies of ecology rarely look at small-scale spatial community organisation within multiple plots on multiple sites therefore it is difficult to draw conclusions that can be generalised. We hypothesised that small-scale spatial patterns of Festuca tussock grasslands should be consistent within a site and between various sites because their functional ecology is likely to be similar. Tussocks were mapped in 15 plots ranging in size from 56 to 400 m² spread over four sites. Ripley's K, inhomogeneous Ripley’s K and inhomogeneous pair correlation functions were implemented to detect patterns of aggregation, regularity and not significantly different from random at scales up to 300 cm. While Ripley’s K indicated a general trend of regularity up to small scales (c. 20 cm) and aggregation up to larger scales (>40 cm), these patterns were not upheld by the inhomogeneous Ripley’s K and inhomogeneous pair correlation function analyses, which did not yield consistent patterns. Our results suggest that within- and between-site variation of spatial patterns cannot be assumed to be consistent.