Landscape Ecology and Ecosystems Management

This publication introduces the concepts and principles of landscape ecology for managing wildlife and other natural resources. It is intended to raise public awareness and give an overview of a new philosophy and method for managing natural resources at the landscape level. A landscape is a heterogenous area composed of a cluster of interacting ecosystems that are repeated in various sizes, shapes, and spatial relationships throughout the landscape. Landscapes have different land forms, vegetation types, and land uses. Another way of looking at a landscape is as a mosaic of habitat patches across which organisms move, settle, reproduce, and eventually die and return to the soil. The best way to envision a landscape is to look at the land from an aerial perspective or to examine aerial photographs to see how a particular piece of land fits into the larger picture. Landscape ecology is the study of structure, function, and change in a heterogenous land area composed of interacting ecosystems. It is an interdisciplinary science dealing with the interrelationship between human society and our living space. Landscape ecology is a relatively new science, although Europeans have been using its principles much longer than Americans. We can learn a great deal from examining how the Europeans have taken an almost completely human-dominated landscape and attempted to restore ecological functions to its systems. Principles of Landscape Ecology