Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-b6zl4 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-27T23:12:50.917Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

35 - Toward a unified landscape ecology

from PART VII - Retrospect and prospect

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2009

By
John A. Wiens
Edited by
John A. Wiens  and
Michael R. Moss
John A. Wiens
Affiliation:
Arlington USA
John A. Wiens
Affiliation:
The Nature Conservancy, Washington DC
Michael R. Moss
Affiliation:
University of Guelph, Ontario
Get access

Summary

The variety of topics and approaches represented by the essays in this volume testifies to the diversity of landscape ecology as a discipline. Remote sensing, fragmentation, ecological networks and greenways, percolation models, spatial statistics, cultural perceptions, metapopulation dynamics, land-use planning, experimental model systems, watershed hydrology, individual-based modeling – landscape ecology is all of these, and more.

This diversity is at once the great strength and the potential weakness of landscape ecology. Landscape ecology can gain strength from the sharing of problems, perspectives, and procedures that are derived from different research traditions and cultures. “Interdisciplinary” has become a fashionable label, and while many interdisciplinary approaches are simply traditional disciplines dressed in new clothes, landscape ecology truly is interdisciplinary. It is this convergence of different avenues of thought and practice that gives landscape ecology its tremendous vitality and that offers the promise of new insights into the ecology of land (and water; see Wiens, 2002) systems. But this diversity also carries with it the threat of fragmentation and polarization. As landscape ecology continues its explosive growth, there is a risk that subdisciplines will seek their own identity and will look inward rather than outward, splintering rather than consolidating landscape ecology.

If landscape ecology is to contribute meaningfully in such arenas as the resolution of land-use issues, the emergence of comprehensive conservation initiatives, or the development of spatially sensitive ecological theory, it must become conceptually and operationally unified.

Type
Chapter
Information
Issues and Perspectives in Landscape Ecology , pp. 365 - 373
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Allen, T. F. H. (1998). The landscape “level” is dead: persuading the family to take it off the respirator. In Ecological Scale: Theory and Applications, ed. Peterson, D. L. and Parker, V. T.. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, pp. 35–54.Google Scholar
Bennett, A. F. (1999). Linkages in the Landscape: the Role of Corridors and Connectivity in Wildlife Conservation. Gland, Switzerland: International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN).Google Scholar
Bestelmeyer, B. T. and Wiens, J. A. (1996). The effects of land use on the structure of ground-foraging ant communities in the Argentine Chaco. Ecological Applications, 6, 1225–1240.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cadenasso, M. L., Pickett, S. T. A., Weathers, K. C., and Jones, C. G. (2003). A framework for a theory of ecological boundaries. BioScience, 53, 750–758.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Forman, R. T. T. and Godron, M. (1986). Landscape Ecology. New York, NY: Wiley.Google Scholar
Groves, C. (2003). Drafting a Conservation Blueprint: a Practitioner's Guide to Planning for Biodiversity. Washington, DC: Island Press.Google Scholar
Hobbs, R. (1997). Future landscapes and the future of landscape ecology. Landscape and Urban Planning, 37, 1–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kareiva, P. and Marvier, M. (2003). Conserving biodiversity coldspots. American Scientist, 91, 344–351.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leopold, A. (1949). A Sand County Almanac. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Myers, N. (2003). Biodiversity hotspots revisited. BioScience, 53, 916–917.Google Scholar
Nassauer, J. I. (1997). Placing Nature: Culture and Landscape Ecology. Washington, DC: Island Press.Google Scholar
Rosenzweig, M. L. (2003). Win–Win Ecology: How the Earth's Species can Survive in the Midst of Human Enterprise. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Seddon, G. (1997). Landprints: Refletions on Place and Landscape. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Tischendorf, L. and Fahrig, L. (2000). On the usage and measurement of landscape connectivity. Oikos, 90, 7–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turner, M. G., Gardner, R. H., and O'Neill, R. V. (2001). Landscape Ecology in Theory and Practice. New York, NY: Springer.Google Scholar
Wiens, J. A. (1999). The science and practice of landscape ecology. In Landscape Ecological Analysis: Issues and Applications, eds. Klopatek, J. M. and Gardner, R. H., pp. 371–383. New York: Springer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wiens, J. A. (2001). The landscape context of dispersal. In Dispersal, ed. Clobert, J., Danchin, E., Dhondt, A. A., and Nichols, J. D.. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 96–109.Google Scholar
Wiens, J. A. (2002). Riverine landscapes: taking landscape ecology into the water. Freshwater Biology, 47, 501–515.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Zonneveld, I. (1995). Land Ecology. Amsterdam: SPB.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×