Walther’s Law Only Applies to Low-Frequency Spatial Information

Understanding how spatial heterogeneity in modern sedimentary systems is translated into stratigraphic successions remains a central challenge in sedimentology and raises questions about the applicability of Walther’s Law. Progress has been limited by the scarcity of intermediate time-slice observations at multi-decadal scales. To address this gap, we digitized historic aerial photographs from 1945 and compared them with modern high-resolution satellite imagery to document ~80 years of benthic habitat and facies evolution across two regions of the Bahamian carbonate platform: Joulters Cays and northern Abacos. Both areas display belt-shaped habitat distributions composed of aggregated smaller patches, yet they experienced contrasting trajectories. In Joulters Cays, active ooid sand bars and hardgrounds were largely replaced by seagrass meadows, whereas in northern Abacos ooid sand bars expanded at the expense of seagrass habitats. Quantitative heterogeneity metrics indicate that smaller habitat patches are particularly vulnerable to decadal-scale change. Despite pronounced spatial heterogeneity in modern environments, sediment and virtual core analyses reveal limited preservation of these small-scale patterns in the stratigraphic record. We interpret this discrepancy as the result of a stratigraphic low-pass filter driven by the short persistence of small patches, variable sediment production among habitats, and sediment transport processes. These results suggest that signals from larger, more persistent habitats are preferentially preserved, whereas fine-scale spatial heterogeneity is lost, challenging the applicability of Walther’s Law at short spatial scales.