Feature Papers in Landscape Ecology: An Editorial Overview

Abstract

Landscapes can be seen as important socio-ecological systems. They are both the place and the scale at which humans interact with the environment [1]. They can be described as spatially heterogeneous geographic areas characterized by diverse interacting patches or ecosystems. They range from relatively natural terrestrial and aquatic systems to human-dominated environments such as agricultural and urban settings. This broad definition emphasizes that when we study landscapes, we are investigating areas that can sit somewhere on a gradient of mostly natural to intensively modified by human activity. As society has grappled with the increasing need to acknowledge and mitigate the damage caused by the intensive use of landscapes to satisfy the ecosystem service requirements of a growing global population, the important meta science of landscape ecology has evolved. Its focus is on studying and improving the relationships between ecological and environmental processes and particular ecosystems at a variety of landscape scales and organizational levels relevant to research, policy, and management. Landscape ecology specifically seeks to integrate knowledge of human activities influencing patterns and processes and provide information that is helpful for land use planning and sustainable landscape management. As such, landscape ecology is interdisciplinary and sits at the interface of the biophysical and socioeconomic sciences. In its short time as a discipline, it has predominantly focused on the relationships between patterns, processes, and changes, but has expanded in recent years to incorporate important considerations around design and value to mitigate the risks and challenges associated with unsustainable landscape change and climate change...