Table 1. First and second order effects.

Macroecological pattern	First-order effect	Second-order effect
Species abundance distribution	Log-normal (approximate)	Changes in mean, coefficient of variation, skewness, kurtosis at different area scales
Species area relationship	Power law (approximate)	Changes in local slope at different area scales
Similarity-distance relationship	Monotonic decreasing	Changes in local slope at different distance scales
Fraction of clumped species	Positive	Changes in local slope at different distance scales

First-order effects describe all datasets, while second-order effects may provide scale-dependent approaches for distinguishing datasets.