Ecosystems and Landscape Ecology
Area of Emphasis

Graduate Group in Ecology
University of California, Davis

Information Index

What is Ecosystem and Landscape Ecology?

According to R.T.T. Forman and Michel Godron in Landscape Ecology (1986, John Wiley and Sons):

"Landscape Ecology is the study of structure, function and change in a heterogeneous land area composed of interacting ecosystems.

It therefore focuses on:

• structure, the spatial patterns of landscape elements and ecological objects (such as animals, biomass and mineral nutrients);
• function, the flows of objects between landscape elements; and
• change, alterations in the mosaic through time."

Z. Naveh and A. Lieberman in Landscape Ecology: Theory and Application (1994, Springer-Verlag) state:

"Landscape ecology is a young branch of modern ecology that deals with the interrelationship between man and his open and built-up landscapes.

Landscape ecology evolved in central Europe as a result of the holistic approach adopted by geographers, ecologists, landscape planners, designers, and managers in their attempt to bridge the gap between natural, agricultural, human and urban systems.

The discipline of landscape ecology is ... not merely ... a spatial ramification of population, community and ecosystem ecology for the study of the ecology of landscapes, but also an innovative, dynamic and integrative field of environmental study and action in its own right, dealing with landscapes as tangible ordered wholes of natural and human systems at different scales and dimensions."

Editors C.G. Jones and J.H. Lawton present many different definitions of Ecosystem Ecology in the book Linking Species and Ecosystem (1995, Chapman and Hall)

"Questions in ecosystem ecology commonly focus on material and energy fluxes (e.g. Odum 1971; Schlesinger 1991)."

N.B. Grimm (Ch. 1): "Ecological investigations of ecosystem functioning may be aimed at understanding effects of ecosystem processes, interactions, and components on their context, or on the larger system of which ecosystems are a part."

J.F. Franklin (Ch. 31): "Ecosystem scientists are empirical and, often, applied in orientation. Typically, they are associated with professional schools -- forestry, fisheries, or range science -- or have geophysical backgrounds. In addition, they have a holistic outlook and may focus on material and energy cycles, for example. Ecosystem scientists may be less committed to the predictability of nature, often emphasizing probabilities, stochastic processes, and chaos."

Related Research and Web Sites

Landscape Ecology

Ecological Publishers

Grant Opportunities

Job Listings

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Administrative Information

1. Description
2. Faculty
3. Administrative Structure
4. Student Requirements
5. ELE AOE Coursework
6. ELE AOE Faculty Members

Contact: Silvia Hillyer, schillyer@ucdavis.edu

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E&LE-AOE Students

Official AOE Students

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Faculty in the ELE AOE

AOE Faculty

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