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in the interdisciplinary literature. However, because of the plurality of its origins
and interpretations, landscape has acquired various connotations. For example, the
same word may refer to a natural landscape, a cultural landscape, a political
landscape, an economic landscape, a mental landscape, an adaptive landscape,
a landscape view, landscaping, or landscape painting [ 9 , 10 ].
Even within the field of landscape ecology, the word, “landscape,” has different
meanings, and the differences usually hinge on the spatial scale and the contents of
a landscape. For example, landscape has been defined as a kilometers-wide geo-
graphic area [ 11 , 12 ], which corresponds to the “human-scale” landscape. This is the
scale at which the field of landscape ecology was originally developed in Europe, and
at which most landscape studies have been conducted around the world ever since.
The human-scale landscape, in general, seems to coincide well with geographic units
such as watersheds and urban regions [ 4 ], as well as spatial domains of human
perception [ 13 ]. Thus, it resonates with the public, the decision makers, and
researchers who are conscious about the environmental setting in which they live,
work, and engage in recreation.
Many other landscape ecologists, however, have treated landscape as a multi-
scale or hierarchical concept, meaning that a landscape is a spatially heterogeneous
area that may be of various sizes, depending on the subject of study and the research
questions at hand [ 6 , 14 , 15 ]. In this case, landscape is an “ecological criterion”
[ 14 ], and its essence does not lie in its absolute scale but in its internal heterogene-
ity. Different plant and animal species perceive, experience, and respond to spatial
heterogeneity at different scales, and patterns and processes in landscapes tend to
have different characteristic scales [ 16 ]. Thus, a hierarchical concept of landscape,
of course also encompassing the human-scale, is both sensible and necessary.
Apparently, one does not need to consider a landscape of tens of square kilometers
to study how grassland vegetation pattern affects the movement of beetles [ 17 ]oris
affected by gophers [ 18 ].
The elements that constitute a landscape vary greatly in landscape ecological
research. For simplicity, the components of a landscape may be classified as
tangible versus intangible and biophysical versus cultural. This is not intended to
represent a dichotomous view, but rather a continuum within which a variety
of components coexist. Tress and Tress [ 10 ] proposed a “transdisciplinary land-
scape concept” that encompasses five dimensions: (1) landscape as a spatial entity,
(2) landscape as a mental entity, (3) landscape as a temporal dimension, (4) land-
scape as a nexus of nature and culture, and (5) landscape as a complex system.
Landscape ecological studies often have focused on some but not all of these
dimensions. The concept of landscape provides a meeting ground for a number of
disciplines, including archaeology, ecology, geography, geology, history, land-
scape architecture, and regional economics. To achieve its interdisciplinary and
transdisciplinary goals, landscape ecology needs to appreciate and integrate the
multifaceted perspectives on the culture-nature/people-place relationships that are
offered by these diverse disciplines.
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