Landscape ecology is the study of the reciprocal interactions between spatial patterns and ecological processes on a multitude of scales (that occur on landscapes), in both a descriptive and prescriptive manner. In other words, the role of spatial configuration (i.e., spatial heterogeneity) is explicitly addressed to understand how changes in landscape composition and/or arrangement will affect the ecology. Accordingly, the fundamental assumptions of landscape ecology are: (1) things vary among locations; and (2) where things are and where they are relative to other things can have important consequences.
Other important considerations include scale and stationarity. As discussed in last week’s lecture, scale is fundamental to our interpretation and understanding of the analysis being carried out; and thus is a central issue when studying landscape ecology as physical processes determine the composition or arrangement in the environment. Stationarity is when the processes that govern the placement of an object or event do not change (or drift) over space. A process can be first-order stationary (i.e., no variation in the intensity over space) or second-order stationary (i.e., no interaction between objects or events). In addition, the processes that operate on the landscape include abiotic conditions (e.g., climate, topography, and soil), biotic interactions (e.g., competition), anthropogenic impacts, and disturbances (e.g., landslides). These processes can influence the spatial configuration of landscapes, which can (and likely will) lead to change in their composition and/or arrangement.
This lecture reinforced the discussions from last week’s lecture through the introduction of landscape ecology. The importance of understanding the underlying processes, the scale(s) at which those processes operate, and knowledge of how those processes impact the landscape in order to draw meaningful information from any analyses became more evident as a result.
Keywords: Landscape Ecology, Heterogeneity, Spatial Autocorrelation, Stationarity, and Fractal.