Fig. 3. Graphs of landscape measures for the five watersheds in the Western Corn Belt Plains (watersheds > 25 km2) with the highest habitat index (HI) scores and the five lowest. The graph shows what at first appear to be counterintuitive relationships: Watersheds with more agriculture, a landscape in which cover types are more aggregated, and less forest have better habitat conditions and lower turbidity. Turbidity is measured in nephelometric turbidity units (NTUs) and contagion is measured in percent with higher values indicating a more clumped or aggregated land cover.
