  We present a method to describe the relation between indicators of landscape
diversity and the human appropriation of the net primary production in a given
region. These quantities are viewed as functions of the vector of proportions
of the different land covers, which is in turn treated as a random vector whose
values depend on the particular small terrain cell that is observed.
  We illustrate the method assuming first that the vector of proportions
follows a uniform distribution on the simplex. We then consider as starting
point a raw dataset of observed proportions for each cell, for which we must
first obtain an estimate of its theoretical probability distribution, and
secondly generate a sample of large size from it. We apply this procedure to
real historical data of the Mallorca Island in three different moments of time.
  Our main goal is to compute the mean value of the landscape diversity as a
function of the level of human appropriation. This function is related to the
so-called Energy-Species hypothesis and to the Intermediate Disturbance
Hypothesis.
