ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses what it means to describe the ecological processes by abstract spaces and what it means to transfer the results obtained by abstract spaces into maps representing the geographical space. The spatial pattern of ecological processes is related to the spatial pattern of living organisms and/or communities. The phenetic maps showing the distribution of biological and environmental variables in the ‘real’ space are indispensable tools for sampling ecological processes to obtain autofunctional maps and/or synfunctional maps. By studying the spatial pattern of the ecological components and processes it is necessary to define the operational geographic units (OGUs) that have to be described and compared. The concept of OGU has been introduced in biogeography by T. J. Crovello, but it is useful also in landscape ecology. J. E. Dobson discusses the possible integration between remote sensing techniques and geographic information systems for building a ‘better macroscope’ for landscape analysis.
