This landscape would probably impose barriers, open spaces and corridors on an organism moving through it. Moving across Keanae Valley would be quite different than moving across the plains of Kansas. Andow et al. Fractal geometry andscape ruggedness can be quantified with fractal geometry , which can measure the convolutedness of the landscape surface. A smooth landscape would have a fractal dimension close to 2, while a rugged surface like the one to the right might be characterized by a fractal dimension closer to 2.3.
Scale refers to the range of sizes over which a landscape pattern is detectable.
For instance, a large organism like a moose might be most affected by landscape features in the range of 50 - 5000 meters. A moose won't even notice landscape features at centimeter scales. But a ladybug will be rather oblivious to the 5000 meter features and might be very affected by the smaller ones. Quite nicely, the scale of landscape features can also be quantified with fractals. Thus a model incorporating fractal geometry might be able to predict how organisms will move through heterogeneous landscapes.