introduction ecosystem services are the benefits that human derives from the ecosystems. these are servicessuch as goods and products (e.g., fresh water, fuel), regulation of natural processes (e.g., climate, flooding, erosion), and nonmaterial benefits (e.g., recreation, aesthetic enjoyment). many cities are located in the important ecological areas. currently 29 out of the 825 ecological zone...

Semantic fluency tasks have increasingly been used to probe the structure of human memory, adopting methodologies from the ecological foraging literature to describe memory as a trajectory through semantic space. Clusters of semantically related items are often produced together, and the transitions between these clusters of semantically related items are consistent with theories of optimal for...

The diurnal distribution and abundance dynamics of loafing Glaucous-winged Gulls (Larus glaucescens) were examined at Protection Island National Wildlife Refuge, Strait of Juan de Fuca, Washington. Asynchronous movement of gulls among three habitat patches dedicated to loafing was modeled as a function of environmental variables using differential equations. Multiple time scale analysis led to ...

Spatial variation in ecological systems can arise both as a consequence of variation in the quality and availability of resources and as an emergent property of spatially structured interactions. We used a spatially explicit model to simulate populations of herbivore hosts and their parasitoids in landscapes with different levels of variance in plant patch quality and different spatial arrangem...

In many ecological situations, resources are difficult to find but become more apparent to nearby searchers after one of their numbers discovers and begins to exploit them. If the discoverer cannot monopolize the resources, then others may benefit from joining the discoverer and sharing their discovery. Existing theories for this type of conspecific attraction have often used very simple rules ...

The Sicamous Creek Silvicultural Systems project examines clearcutting and silvicultural alternatives to clearcutting in high-elevation Engelmann spruce – subalpine fir (ESSF) forests, motivated by concerns about the effects of forestry practices on regeneration, hydrology, and biological diversity. Treatments include: ha clearcuts, arrays of -ha openings, arrays of .-ha patch cuts, indivi...

Although a number of digital terrain analysis techniques were developed since the early 90ies terrain information is not utilized enough in landscape research even if topography is a key variable in a wide range of environmental processes. One explanation of this situation is the two-dimensionality of the main paradigm in landscape ecology, namely the patch-corridor-matrix model. Calculations o...

1 Results from patch-occupancy metapopulation models indicate that a trade-off between competitive and colonization abilities is necessary for species to coexist in patchy environments. However, such models are often based on unrealistic ecological assumptions, such as global dispersal and no local population dynamics. 2 We develop a plant metapopulation model that allows us to sequentially rel...

Very high resolution satellite images are used to derive the spatial distributions of landscape ecological metrics within suburban areas. These indicators are weighted mean patch size and lacunarity computed from thresholded normalized difference vegetation index obtained from multispectral IKONOS-2 imagery. Spatial distributions of the metrics are derived for an extensive suburban area on the ...

1. How organisms locate their hosts is of fundamental importance in a variety of basic and applied ecological fields, including population dynamics, invasive species management and biological control. However, tracking movement of small organisms, such as insects, poses significant logistical challenges. 2. Mass-release and individual–mark–recapture techniques were combined in an individually m...