Landscape Ecology

</p><p><i>Landscape Ecology</i> is the flagship journal of a well-established and rapidly developing interdisciplinary science that focuses explicitly on the ecological understanding of spatial heterogeneity.  <i>Landscape Ecology</i> draws together expertise from both biophysical and socioeconomic sciences to explore basic and applied research questions concerning the ecology, conservation, management, design/planning, and sustainability of landscapes as coupled human-environment systems.  Landscape ecology studies are characterized by spatially explicit methods in which spatial attributes and arrangements of landscape elements are directly analyzed and related to ecological processes.  </p> <p>All manuscripts must show a keen awareness of the current literature and an immediate relevance to at least one of the following key topics:  (1) Flows and redistributions of organisms, materials, and energy in landscape mosaics; (2) Landscape connectivity and fragmentation; (3) Ecosystem services in dynamic landscapes (especially, tradeoffs and synergies); (4) Landscape history and legacy effects; (5) Landscape and climate change interactions (particularly, mitigation and adaptation); (6) Landscape sustainability and resilience (e.g., relationships between ecosystem services and human well-being in changing landscapes); (7) Mechanisms and ecological impacts of land use change; (8) Scaling relations and hierarchical linkages of patterns and processes across landscapes; (9) Innovative methods in landscape analysis and modeling; and (10) Accuracy assessment and uncertainty analysis of landscape studies.</p> <p>A valuable resource for both researchers and practitioners in ecology, conservation, ecosystem management, and landscape planning and design, <i>Landscape Ecology</i> is currently one of the leading journals across these fields.</p> <p>

List of Papers (Total 821)

Long-term, landscape- and wind-driven snow conditions influence Adélie penguin colony extinctions

The interaction between topography and wind influences snow cover patterns, which can determine the distribution of species reliant on snow-free habitats. Past studies suggest snow accumulation creates suboptimal breeding habitats for Adélie penguins, leading to colony extinctions. However, evidence linking snow cover to landscape features is lacking. We aimed to model landscape...

Going with the grain: scalar conservation easement dataset comparison

Private land conservation maintains global biodiversity while securing areas for biome shifts. Conservation easements (CEs) are the dominant form in both the US and increasingly, globally. We illustrate the differences in the National Conservation Easement Database (NCED) and a fine-scale curated collection of CEs, the Granular Conservation Easement Datasets (GCED), which fills...

Land-cover patterns differentially affect population genetic structure and connectivity of two anurans

Land use/land cover change (LULCC) is rapidly altering the quality and quantity of the habitat matrix for many species, potentially reducing the connectivity of species across the landscape. Many measures of connectivity do not directly account for quantitative movement behavior, which can inform the relative influence of specific landscape features on overall connectivity. We...

The characterisation and future sustainability of a rural landscape: using integrated approaches for temporal heritage landscape analysis in Northwest Spain

Changing global socioeconomics are endangering agrosilvopastoral landscapes and with them the knowledge of maintaining these historical, sustainable forms of territorial management. Approaches that integrate Local Spatial Knowledge (LSK) with scientific methods are valuable means to understand their landscape heritage, identity, and temporal land use and land cover (LULC). Our...

Combining occupancy and dispersal models to predict the conservation benefits of land-use change

Economic incentives for habitat creation in productive agricultural land are an important tool for halting biodiversity loss. Given inevitable funding constraints, assessing the cost-effectiveness of potential habitat creation strategies should be a priority. We make model predictions of changes in the populations of ten woodland-affiliated bird species over time across a set of...

Hydrodynamic conditions and habitat configuration structure juvenile fish assemblages across a tropical seascape

Landscape structure and environmental conditions influence the distribution and abundance of adult fish, with significant implications for ecosystem functioning. However, our understanding of seascape effects on juvenile fish remains comparatively limited. We examined how habitat composition, seascape configuration, and environmental context shape juvenile fish assemblages across...

Detecting spatiotemporal changes in harvester ant disks in response to fire and rodent competition using small unoccupied aerial systems imagery

North American deserts are changing due to expansion and increasing intensity of human activities. Disturbances and landscape change affect harvester ants, a keystone species in dryland ecosystems. Imagery acquired from small Unoccupied Aerial Vehicles (sUAVs) was analyzed to assess above-ground ant responses to change over time in the context of disturbance ecology and...

Effects of defaunation of large seed dispersers, habitat loss and fragmentation on the population expansion of a tropical palm

Habitat loss and fragmentation are two processes resulting from land-use changes that significantly affect biodiversity worldwide. These two processes alongside illegal hunting are the main causes of the reduction in fauna diversity, richness, and biomass, which together characterize defaunation. Large animal species are the most affected by this process, compromising ecosystem...

A Bayesian method for estimating multiscale resource selection using presence-only data: a case study predicting winter distributions for little brown, northern long-eared, and tricolored bats

Estimating the distribution of rare species is an important component of conservation. The occurrence of such species is often only known from few presence-only observations and the spatial scales at which they select resources is poorly understood. Scientists often select arbitrary discrete spatial scales for estimating distribution models; however, resource selection follows a...

Landscape scale effects of primary productivity on forest bird species occurrence and abundance in Argentina

Approaches estimating landscape effects on biodiversity frequently focus on a single extent, finding one ‘optimal’ extent, or use narrow extents. However, species perceive the environment in different ways, select habitat hierarchically, and respond to multiple selection pressures at extents that best predict each pressure. We aimed to assess multi-scale relationships between...

Bridging the key components of urban ecosystem services assessment: links and feedbacks between “typology-multifunctionality-supply and demand”

Current research on urban ecosystem services faces three major challenges: scale gap, disciplinary barriers, and knowledge fragmentation, necessitating a systematic assessment framework to support precise governance decisions. This study proposes a cascading "Typology-multifunctionality-supply and demand

Citizen science enabled planning for species conservation in urban landscapes: the case of Barn Swallows Hirundo rustica in southern China

Urbanization has detrimental effects on biodiversity, yet how species respond to urban planning zoning outcomes and environmental changes at different spatial scales when selecting urban breeding habitats remains understudied. Mitigating such impacts on wildlife is instrumental to create biodiversity-friendly cities while accommodating urban development. We used Barn Swallow...

Predictors of farmland bird species richness in intensively used agricultural landscapes: habitat heterogeneity, crop type, and food supply matter

Biodiversity in agroecosystems has experienced significant declines in species richness due to intensive agricultural practices. Historically, diverse agricultural landscapes have been replaced by nutrient-rich monocultures. To improve the situation, it is important to find out what are the attributes of these landscapes that support the highest species richness. This study...

Shifting research paradigms in landscape ecology: insights from bibliometric analysis

With 2022 marking the 40th anniversary of International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE), landscape ecology has undergone substantial theoretical and methodological advances. A comprehensive quantitative bibliometric analysis can help better understand how the field has evolved during the past four decades. The main objectives of this review were: (1) to examine the 40...

Potential resilience of forest birds in the Appalachian Mountains to future climate change during the breeding season

Global climate change is predicted to cause long-term changes in bird distributions and populations. Although previous studies often prioritized understanding avian responses to shifting climate conditions, recent efforts increasingly incorporate landscape change as an additional factor. We evaluated current and potential future effects of both climate and landscape change on the...

Exploring the relationship between urban green infrastructure connectivity, size and multifunctionality: a systematic review

Urban green infrastructure (GI) multifunctionality is widely valued within the academic literature, and underpins calls from policy makers to enhance and expand GI resources. However, there is a gap in understanding concerning how GI connectivity and size influence GI multifunctionality outcomes. The objectives are to: (1) present the current status of research on urban GI...

Which affects park satisfaction more, environmental features or spatial pattern?

Improving the quality of urban parks is important for effective planning and sustainable management, with resident satisfaction serving as a key indicator. Current research usually favours analyses focused on single environmental features while ignoring the influence of spatial composition and configuration. This study aims to investigate the relationships among environmental...

UAV-derived models of vegetation characteristics do not transfer to extreme drought and wet conditions across a northern Arizona landscape

Shifts in precipitation regimes due to climate change are significantly impacting dryland ecosystems, including vegetation composition and structure. Unoccupied aerial vehicles (UAVs) are widely used to monitor vegetation, but whether models built to predict changes in these characteristics are robust under extreme precipitation regimes is unclear. We aimed to predict key...

Roo-tine obstacles: uncovering the spatio-genetic barriers for Eastern Grey Kangaroos (Macropus giganteus) in an urbanising landscape

Urban landscapes present a diverse matrix of structures and habitats containing significant physical and behavioural barriers to terrestrial wildlife dispersal. Yet, our understanding of these barriers for large mammals in the context of genetic connectivity within urbanising landscapes is limited. We investigated the effects of landscape structures on the genetic differentiation...

Future expansion of upper forest-grassland ecotone under land-use and climate change in the Eastern Alps

Across Alpine landscapes, a combination of land-use abandonment and climate change is driving forest expansion and promoting the upward migration of trees on grasslands. Yet, it remains unclear how rapidly the upper forest-grassland ecotone will shift and how tree species composition will change, both in terms of species proportions and along elevational gradients. Our aim is to...

The VASA (historical and environmental evaluation) multitemporal approach for the analysis and assessment of rural landscape transformations

The study of landscape over different years through the analysis of different sources (cadasters, aerophotos, orthophotos, satellite images) is commonly used in landscape planning and in researches focusing on landscape and land use changes and transformations. Most of these studies, despite the scale and the period analyzed, tend to apply different methodologies, making it...