Pattern detection in plant populations through the analysis of plant-to-all-plants distances

A method of sampling and analysis is proposed to detect pattern parameters in plant populations from two-dimensional data. the use of aerial photographs to find the coordinates of trees and the measurements of plant-to-all-plants distances yields conditioned probability spectra which can be interpreted in terms of pattern parameters. Two artificial populations and a set of real data have been analysed to test the accuracy of the method.