Results
When the areas in an ecosystem are sorted into the heterogeneous,
transitional and homogeneous according to the low, middle and high EGUS
value, the results of simulation showed that species richness is often
the highest in the area with a middle EGUS value, followed by those in
the area with a high value, and lastly, in the area with a low value.
The area with a high EGUS value is the highest only when the
environmental stress levels are very high in these areas (Table 1). The
second simulation method revealed a unimodal relationship between
species richness and EGUS (Fig. 1).
The investigation also showed a unimodal algal richness-water EGUS value
relationship (Fig. 2). After the locations were matched with local MoranI (\(I_{i}\)) values, the results showed that the EGUS of water
in the middle layer of the lake is the highest, followed by that of the
shallow layer, and lastly, that of the deeper layer. The algal richness
of the middle and deeper layers decrease by about 5% and 12% compared
to that of the shallow layer, respectively. The EGUS of the river
section closest to a city is the highest, followed by that of the
section closest to a dam, and lastly, that of the section passing by the
city. The algal richness in the river section closest to the city and
the section passing by the city decrease by about 9% and 26% compared
to that of the section closest to the dam, respectively.