Meaghan Shaffer

Landscape ecology is an emerging branch of science, incorporating a multitude of principles and theories. Landscapes can be loosely defined as ecosystems occurring over an area in a similar form (Forman, 1995). This science includes such aspects as scale, the spatial configuration of the landscape, energy flows within the system, the boundaries, and the heterogeneity within the system (Wiens, 1999). The interactions of these components comprise habitats. Habitats may be described as an ecosystem with characteristics supporting species survival (Forman, 1995). Specific habitat features must be present in order to provide suitable foraging, resting, and breeding opportunities for wildlife species. One vital characteristic of habitats is abundance, which can simply be defined as the amount of suitable land for a certain species. Therefore, one could assume that the presence of suitable habitat correlates with population numbers.