the Scripps Institution of Oceanography A-002, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
Trends Ecol Evol. 1990 Mar;5(3):79-86. doi: 10.1016/0169-5347(90)90235-6.
Fractal models describe the geometry of a wide variety of natural objects such as coastlines, island chains, coral reefs, satellite ocean-color images and patches of vegetation. Cast in the form of modified diffusion models, they can mimic natural and artificial landscapes having different types of complexity of shape. This article provides a brief introduction to fractals and reports on how they can be used by ecologists to answer a variety of basic questions, about scale, measurement and hierarchy in, ecological systems.
分形模型描述了各种自然物体的几何形状，如海岸线、岛链、珊瑚礁、卫星海洋颜色图像和植被斑块。这些模型采用改进的扩散模型形式，可以模拟具有不同形状复杂度的自然和人工景观。本文简要介绍了分形，并报告了生态学家如何利用分形来回答关于生态系统中尺度、测量和层次的各种基本问题。
