Spatial autocorrelation analysis: computer program and examples of application with different data of grassland vegetation under a natural reforestation process in the Karst near Trieste

A program in FORTRAN 77 for spatial pattern based on the methods of nearest-neighbor and autocorrelation is presented. It has been used with the option for autocorrelation to analyse the spatial pattern of 120 species and other variables as life-growth forms, chorological elements and classes of environmental variables, along transects from open grasslands to groups of trees (NR) in the Karst area near Trieste. The results proved that both the species and the other variables show significant pattern. Particularly a high degree of significance has been found for the variables of higher hierarchical meaning than species and especially for the classes of environmental variables. The number of entities with significant pattern increases in function of the length of the transect. The results prove that along the transect there is a composite ecologica] gradient which produces significant changes of vegetation pattern at different hierarchical levels, both structural and chorological.