Temporal Extensions of Landscape Ecology Theory and Practice: Examples from the Peruvian Amazon

The growing overlap between geographic information science (GIScience) and landscape ecology for landscape characterization has led to increasingly sophisticated measures of landscape site and situation. Scale, both temporal and spatial, has been injected into methodologies to improve our ability to...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Professional geographer 2006-11, Vol.58 (4), p.421-435
Main Author: Crews-Meyer, Kelley A.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amazon
Case studies
change detection
Ecology
Environmental change
Geography
Information sciences
Land use
Landscape
Landscape ecology
landuse/landcover change (LULCC)
Longitudinal studies
Methodology
pattern metrics
Peru
Research methodology
temporal analysis
Theory
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Summary:The growing overlap between geographic information science (GIScience) and landscape ecology for landscape characterization has led to increasingly sophisticated measures of landscape site and situation. Scale, both temporal and spatial, has been injected into methodologies to improve our ability to derive process from pattern with the hope of defining, monitoring, and modeling ecological landscape function. This article addresses an evolving methodology of longitudinal or panel analysis designed to test the relative importance of thematic versus structural landscape configuration as well as interannual versus intra-annual change. Landscape typologies for both temporal signature and dominant structural trajectories are offered as guideposts for rethinking dynamic landscape characterization. A case study from the Peruvian Amazon is provided to illustrate interpretive advances available via panel methods that allow for disentangling inter- and intra-annual shifts as well as separating changes in composition versus configuration for improved understanding of landscape dynamics and dynamism.
ISSN:0033-0124
1467-9272
DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9272.2006.00579.x