This tutorial is intended to provide FRAGSTATS users a "quick start" on how to use the software. All of the necessary data and files for the tutorial have been provided and these can be used as templates for how to format your own files latter on. However, this tutorial is not a substitute for the complete FRAGSTATS user manual; all serious FRAGSTATS users are responsible for understanding all of the information in the user manual.
The tutorial is actually a series of short tutorials designed to demonstrate some of the basic features of FRAGSTATS; it is not intended to be a comprehensive guide, but rather a guide to help new users get started. The tutorials include the following:
- Setting Up Software and Inspecting Grids -- Covers the basic setup of the software and computer for running FRAGSTATS and an inspection of the grids that will be used in the subsequent tutorials. All users should complete this tutorial.
- Analyzing a single grid -- Covers the essential steps involved in analyzing a single grid, including the use of ancillary tables for calculating functional metrics.
- Batch processing multiple grids -- Covers the use of batch files for processing multiple grids at once.
- Moving window analysis -- Covers the use of a moving window analysis to create local landscape structure gradients.
- Running the command line version from R -- Covers the execution of FRAGSTATS command line version from R (programming environment and statistical computing environment).
- Using sampling strategies to analyze sub-landscapes -- Covers the use of various sampling strategies to analyze sub-landscapes, including 1) exhaustive sampling using a user-provided, moving window, or systematic tiling scheme, and 2) partial sampling based on user-specified windows around user-provided or random sample points.
A video tutorial can be found here: Fragstats training for NASP Landscape Ecology Module
Last Updated: 16 February 2023
Prepared by: Kevin McGarigal