The Application Of Fractal Geometry To Ecology

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fractal geometry a useful and valid tool.

New insight into the natural world is just one of the results of the increasing
popularity and use of fractal geometry in the last decade. What are fractals and
what are they good for? Scientists in a variety of disciplines have been trying
to answer this question for the last two decades. Physicists, chemists,
mathematicians, biologists, computer scientists, and medical researchers are
just a few of the scientists that have found uses for fractals and fractal
geometry.

Ecologists have found fractal geometry to be an extremely useful tool for
describing ecological systems. Many population, community, ecosystem, and
landscape ecologists use fractal geometry as a tool to help define and explain
the systems in the world around us. As with any scientific field, there has been
some dissension in ecology about the appropriate level of study. For example,
some organism ecologists think that anything larger than a single organism
obscures the ...

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"A fractal is a set for which the Hausdorff-
Besicovitch dimension strictly exceeds the topographical dimension" (Mandelbrot
1977). He later expressed regret for having defined the word at all (Mandelbrot
1982). Other attempts to capture the essence of a fractal include the following
quotes:

"Different people use the word fractal in different ways, but all agree that
fractal objects contain structures nested within one another like Chinese boxes
or Russian dolls." (Kadanoff 1986)

"A fractal is a shape made of parts similar to the whole in some way."
(Mandelbrot 1982)

Fractals are..."geometric forms whose irregular details recur at different
scales." (Horgan 1988)

Fractals ...

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