Abstract
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The idea of landscapes as shifting patch mosaics, structured by a range of biological and physical
stochastic forces, is well suited to shallow tropical environments, where seagrass patches lie within a matrix of
soft sediments or rocky substrates. The interaction of wave fields and tidal currents with carbonate sediment
transport can result in linear morphologies of reef flat material with alternating sand tongues and seagrass beds.
Patch-level metrics capture phenomena such as linearity in one variable, which can be evaluated over a gradient
of predictable environmental change. Interrogating the statistical properties of patch ensembles enables the links
between observed structures and the processes that govern them to be empirically investigated. This study
demonstrates how habitat maps derived from remotely sensed Compact Airborne Spectrographic Imager
(CASI) data can be used to investigate critical controls of landscape mosaics through the application of
geostatistical techniques to Alphonse Atoll, Seychelles.