In the three last decades, continental Ecuador biosphere reserves (CEBRs) have undergone important land cover transformations because of human‐managed systems such as agriculture, livestock, forestry, and urbanization. Thus, the native landscape structure has been altered, exhibiting a mosaic of patches with varying sizes and shapes. The resulting landscape could shape some patterns over time, reflecting the complex interactions between human activities and biotic‐abiotic factors, such as soil, climate, and water availability. Quantifying the landscape patterns and their dynamics is essential for the monitoring and assessment of the ecological consequences of land‐cover change in time. Based on the soil maps and raster land‐cover maps from 1990 to 2016 of two CEBRs, the spatial deforestation patterns were quantified through lacunarity and multifractal analysis. To conduct these analyses, the deforested areas were identified and overlapped to predominant soil types. The results showed that the deforestation process pattern and soil types interact through complex relations due to specific site characteristics. Thereby, both soil and land cover interacted in fractal structures. The patch area distribution of deforestation patterns linked to soil types reveals a power‐law relationship in which, as the area of the deforested patches increased, their frequency decreased. Also, this relation presents self‐similarity and multifractal behaviour over a wide range of scales from 46–2,674 pixels, with a pixel size of 30 m × 30 m. However, each CEBR showed varying degrees of heterogeneity and complexity, which were reflected through lacunarity and multifractal parameters. The dynamics of deforestation patterns linked to soil types can be spatially dependent on the initial patchiness state, the distance to the adjacent patches, and the suitability of the soil for agrarian activities. Altogether, these were the spatial underlying factors of the deforestation evolution in the two CEBRs.

中文翻译：

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将毁林模式与土壤类型联系起来：一种多重分形方法

在过去的三个十年中，厄瓜多尔大陆生物圈保护区（CEBR）由于农业，畜牧业，林业和城市化等人为管理的系统而经历了重要的土地覆盖变化。因此，天然景观结构已经改变，呈现出具有变化的大小和形状的斑块马赛克。由此产生的景观可能会随着时间的流逝而形成一些格局，反映出人类活动与生物，非生物因素（例如土壤，气候和水的可利用性）之间的复杂相互作用。量化景观格局及其动态变化对于监测和评估土地覆被变化的生态后果至关重要。根据1990年至2016年两个CEBR的土壤图和栅格土地覆盖图，通过稀疏性和多重分形分析定量分析了森林砍伐的空间格局。为了进行这些分析，确定了砍伐森林的地区，并与主要的土壤类型重叠。结果表明，由于特定的地点特征，森林砍伐过程模式和土壤类型通过复杂的关系相互作用。因此，土壤和土地覆盖物都以分形结构相互作用。与土壤类型相关的森林砍伐模式的斑块面积分布揭示了幂律关系，其中，随着森林砍伐斑块面积的增加，其发生频率降低。而且，这种关系在46–2,674像素的宽范围内显示出自相似性和多重分形行为，像素大小为30 m×30 m。但是，每个CEBR都表现出不同程度的异质性和复杂性，这是通过裂隙度和多重分形参数反映出来的。与土壤类型相关的毁林模式的动力学在空间上可能取决于初始的斑块状态，与邻近斑块的距离以及土壤对农业活动的适应性。这些都是两个CEBR中森林砍伐演变的空间基础因素。