Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- Part I The Earth System
- Part II Global Physical Climatology
- Part III Soil Processes
- Part IV Hydrometeorology
- Part V Biometeorology
- Part VI Terrestrial Plant Ecology
- 19 Plant strategies
- 20 Populations and communities
- 21 Ecosystems
- 22 Vegetation dynamics
- 23 Disturbances and landscapes
- 24 Global biogeography
- Part VII Terrestrial Forcings and Feedbacks
- Index
- Plate section
- References
This chapter is part of a book that is no longer available to purchase from Cambridge Core
23 - Disturbances and landscapes
from Part VI - Terrestrial Plant Ecology
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- Part I The Earth System
- Part II Global Physical Climatology
- Part III Soil Processes
- Part IV Hydrometeorology
- Part V Biometeorology
- Part VI Terrestrial Plant Ecology
- 19 Plant strategies
- 20 Populations and communities
- 21 Ecosystems
- 22 Vegetation dynamics
- 23 Disturbances and landscapes
- 24 Global biogeography
- Part VII Terrestrial Forcings and Feedbacks
- Index
- Plate section
- References
Summary
Chapter summary
Landscapes represent another level of ecological organization, merging the concepts of populations, communities, and ecosystems. A landscape is a mosaic of communities and ecosystems formed by a gradient of environmental conditions that vary in space and time. The pattern of vegetation in a landscape arises due to environmental gradients in temperature, soil moisture, and other factors. It also arises from disturbances such as fire, forest clearing, or farm abandonment that initiate secondary succession. Succession over periods of decades to centuries in response to disturbances creates a mosaic of communities and ecosystems in various stages of development. Plant species are distributed in arrangements of distinct patches across the landscape related to environmental conditions and disturbance history. Patches are homogeneous units of land with similar topography, soil, microclimate, and vegetation. They are similar in concept to that of a stand. These patches are the individual elements of the landscape and are embedded in a matrix of other patches, which forms the pattern of the landscape. Fire and human uses of land are important disturbance processes creating pattern in landscapes.
Pattern and process in plant communities
The ecology of landscapes is the study of spatial arrangement of vegetation and the relationship between this pattern and the processes that give rise to that pattern (Forman and Godron 1986; Forman 1995). Central to this is the role of disturbance and post-disturbance succession in generating landscape pattern.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Ecological ClimatologyConcepts and Applications, pp. 347 - 363Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008
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