Multifractal diversity-area relationship at small scales in dune slack plant communities

The species-area relationship, SAR, is the first approximation to describe the spatial structure at the community level. This relation, however, takes only species richness into account and ignores interspecific differences in spatial patterns, such as dominance or rarity. The description of such patterns may be achieved via multifractal analysis, allowing the transition from SAR to the diversity-area relation, DAR. This study analyzes the spatial structure of a dune slack plant community, which can be considered as a multifractal object, at a scale level between 25 cm and 2 m. We applied a complete multifractal analysis including both Renyi spectrum and multifractal spectrum, using confidence intervals. The results indicated that we succeeded for the first time deriving generalized Renyi dimensions' spectrum without anomalies for diversity patterns in a plant community. We propose an interpretation of the multifractal spectrum in ecological terms as diversity patterns of subsets of species with a similar spatial distribution.