Landscape Ecology - Ecological Systems - page 185

ecology, for which geography, sociology, and anthropology all have claimed
ownership). The Allerton workshop report clearly recognized the importance
of the multidimensionality of landscapes and the interdisciplinarity of landscape
ecology:
A major forcing function of landscapes is the activity of mankind, especially associated
cultural, economic, and political phenomena. Landscape ecology is not a distinct

discipline or simply a branch of ecology, but rather is the synthetic intersection of many
related disciplines that focus on the spatial-temporal pattern of the landscape” [ 24 ].
Today, a general consensus seems to have emerged that landscape ecology is not
simply an academic discipline, but rather a highly interdisciplinary field of study
[ 2 , 37 ]. Landscape ecology is an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary science that
focuses on the relationship between spatial pattern and ecological processes across
scales. The goal of landscape ecology is not only to understand this relationship
but also to influence it so as to help achieve landscape sustainability [ 38 - 40 ]. As
such, a pluralistic and hierarchical framework has been proposed to facilitate
synergistic interactions between biophysical/pattern-process and holistic/humanis-
tic perspectives ( Fig. 11.1 )[ 37 , 38 ]. “Hierarchical” here refers to the varying
degrees of interdisciplinary, the hierarchy of organizational levels, and the multi-
plicity of spatiotemporal scales of landscape ecological studies. “Pluralistic”
indicates the necessity and importance of recognizing and valuing the different
perspectives and methods in landscape ecology due to its diverse origins and goals.

...

Key Research Topics Landscape Ecology

Based on the suggestions by a group of leading landscape ecologists ( Table 11.2 ),
Wu and Hobbs [ 2 ] identified six key issues that characterize landscape ecology:
(1) interdisciplinarity or transdisciplinarity, (2) integration between basic research
and applications, (3) Conceptual and theoretical development, (4) education and
training, (5) international scholarly communication and collaborations, and (6) out-
reach and communication with the public and decision makers. Wu and Hobbs [ 2 ]
also summarized ten key research topics and priorities as follows:

1. Ecological flows in landscape mosaics: A primary goal of landscape ecology is
to understand the reciprocal relationship between spatial pattern and ecological
processes [ 14 ]. Understanding the mechanisms of flows of organisms, energy,
material, and information in landscape mosaics is central to landscape ecology.
In particular, the study of the effects of spatial pattern on population and
ecosystem processes has made much progress in the past several decades.
There is a need to integrate socioeconomic theory of landscape change into
metapopulation models to make them more relevant to the issues of biodiver-
sity conservation and landscape sustainability. The spread of invading species
has become an increasingly important ecological and economic problem which
deserves more research efforts.