Percolation theory for the distribution and abundance of species

We develop and test new models that unify the mathematical relationships among the abundance of a species, the spatial dispersion of the species, the number of patches occupied by the species, the edge length of the occupied patches, and the scale on which the distribution of species is mapped. The models predict that species distributions will exhibit percolation critical thresholds, i.e., critical population abundances at which the fragmented patches (as measured by the number of patches and edge length) start to coalesce to form large patches.