Landscape ecology

Landscape ecology studies how spatial patterns in landscapes affect ecological processes, organisms, and interactions across scales. It connects the arrangement of habitats and land uses to movement, disturbance, and ecosystem change.

Landscape metrics: Quantitative measures that describe the composition and configuration of landscape patches. They turn landscape patterns into quantities that can be compared with ecological processes.
Systematic conservation planning: A structured approach to selecting and managing areas to meet explicit biodiversity conservation goals. It uses spatial patterns to prioritize connected, representative areas for protection.
Landscape: A spatially heterogeneous area whose ecological features and processes form a connected whole. Landscape ecology treats this heterogeneous area as the central unit of spatial analysis.
Carl Troll: A German geographer who introduced the term landscape ecology in 1939. Troll named the field while linking aerial-photo interpretation with ecological geography.
Ecosystem ecology: The study of energy flow and matter cycling within ecosystems and among their components. It often emphasizes ecosystem processes within defined units, while landscape ecology foregrounds spatial arrangement among them.
Habitat fragmentation: The subdivision of habitat into smaller, more isolated patches, often through land-use change. Fragmentation changes patch size and isolation, altering persistence and movement.
Wildlife corridor: A habitat route intended to allow wildlife movement between otherwise separated areas. Corridor design applies landscape-connectivity principles to conservation practice.
Patch–corridor–matrix model: A framework that describes landscapes as habitat patches, connecting corridors, and a surrounding matrix. This model supplies a basic vocabulary for describing landscape structure.
Richard T. T. Forman: An American ecologist whose work helped establish modern landscape ecology and its spatial frameworks. Forman's research and textbooks shaped the field's influential patch-based vocabulary.
Community ecology: The study of interactions among species and how those interactions shape ecological communities. It focuses on species assemblages, whereas landscape ecology asks how spatial context modifies those interactions.

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