Using edge to interior ratios to characterize disturbance: moving beyond the spatially explicit

Disturbances are dominant ecosystem processes that in some regions control fluxes, nutrient availability and plant community composition. Representing fire within models is essential for accurate model projections. However, capturing the effect disturbances have on fluxes and vegetation in a spatially explicit way is computationally intensive. This causes a trade off between local and highly representative analyses and regional broad analyses. This trade off presents a problem: heterogeneity introduced by local disturbances cause relevant changes on a regional level. Models of disturbance need to bridge both scales. One solution is to represent fire in a spatially implicit way through characterizing metrics. Here, we explore the use of one such metric: the edge-to-interior ratio. We use 15 years of the 30 by 30m resolution LANDFIRE disturbance product to assign edge-to-interior ratios to disturbances. Then, we tested how edge-to-interior ratios distinguishes among disturbance types. Finally, we examine how edge-to-interior ratios vary between different disturbance regimes, ecoregions, and time.