Article
Article
- Environmental Science
- Ecology - general
- Landscape ecology
Landscape ecology
Article By:
Skelly, David School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut.
Last reviewed:October 2021
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1036/1097-8542.370150
Show previous versions
- Landscape ecology, published April 2020:Download PDF Get Adobe Acrobat Reader
- Documenting landscape patterns
- Development of landscapes
- Consequences of landscape patterns
- Related Primary Literature
- Additional Reading
The study of the distribution and abundance of elements within landscapes, the origins of these elements, and their impacts on organisms and processes. A landscape is a distinct association of landforms that are visible within a single view or perspective. Typically, landscape ecologists regard the world as one would see it from an airplane or a distant hill (Fig. 1). The various features of a given area of land that comprise a landscape may be considered as a heterogeneous assemblage or mosaic of internally uniform elements or patches. Examples of patches include remnant blocks of forest, agricultural fields, and housing subdivisions. Overall, landscape ecologists bridge various disciplines—for example, biogeography, land-use planning, hydrology, and ecosystem ecology—in order to understand the interplay between the natural and human factors that influence the development of landscapes, and the impacts of landscape patterns on humans, other organisms, and the flows of materials and energy among patches. Much of landscape ecology is founded on the notion that many ecological phenomena, such as the persistence of a small mammal population within a forest patch, may be fully understood only by accounting for both regional and local factors. See also: Biogeography; Ecology; Ecosystem; Hydrology; Land-use planning
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