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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Landscape Boundaries: Consequences for Biotic Diversity and Ecological Flows

Landscape Boundaries: Consequences for Biotic Diversity and Ecological Flows

Hansen, Andrew J.
Dicastri, Francesco

Paperback

Series: Ecological Studies, Book 92

AgricultureEnvironmental Studies

ISBN10: 1461276772
ISBN13: 9781461276777
Publisher: Springer
Published: Sep 30 2011
Pages: 452
Weight: 1.46
Height: 0.96 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English
The emergence of landscape ecology during the 1980s represents an impor- tant maturation of ecological theory. Once enamored with the conceptual beauty of well-balanced, homogeneous ecosystems, ecologists now assert that much of the essence of ecological systems lies in their lumpiness. Patches with differing properties and behaviors lie strewn across the land- scape, products of the complex interactions of climate, disturbance, and biotic processes. It is the collective behavior of this patchwork of eco- systems that drives pattern and process of the landscape. is not an end point This realization of the importance of patch dynamics in itself, however. Rather, it is a passage to a new conceptual framework, the internal workings of which remain obscure. The next tier of questions includes: What are the fundamental pieces that compose a landscape? How are these pieces bounded? To what extent do these boundaries influence communication and interaction among patches of the landscape? Will con- sideration of the interactions among landscape elements help us to under- stand the workings of landscapes? At the core of these questions lies the notion of the ecotone, a term with a lineage that even predates ecosystem. Late in the nineteenth century, F. E. Clements realized that the transition zones between plant communi- ties had properties distinct from either of the adjacent communities. Not until the emergence of patch dynamics theory, however, has central signif- icance of the ecotone concept become apparent.

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