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Article
How Landscape Ecology Informs Global Land-Change Science and Policy
BioScience
  • Audrey L. Mayer, Michigan Technological University
  • Brian Buma, University of Alaska Southeast
  • Amélie Davis, Miami University - Oxford
  • Sara A. Gagné, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
  • E. Louise Loudermilk, United States Forest Service
  • Robert M. Scheller, Portland State University
  • Fiona K.A. Schmiegelow, University of Alberta
  • Fiona Majorin, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
  • Yolanda F. Wiersma, Memorial University of Newfoundland
  • Janet Franklin, Arizona State University
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
4-1-2016
Subjects
  • Climatic changes,
  • Landscape ecology,
  • Urbanization,
  • Land use -- Planning -- Environmental aspects
Abstract

Landscape ecology is a discipline that explicitly considers the influence of time and space on the environmental patterns we observe and the processes that create them. Although many of the topics studied in landscape ecology have public policy implications, three are of particular concern: climate change; land use–land cover change (LULCC); and a particular type of LULCC, urbanization. These processes are interrelated, because LULCC is driven by both human activities (e.g., agricultural expansion and urban sprawl) and climate change (e.g., desertification). Climate change, in turn, will affect the way humans use landscapes. Interactions among these drivers of ecosystem change can have destabilizing and accelerating feedback, with consequences for human societies from local to global scales. These challenges require landscape ecologists to engage policymakers and practitioners in seeking long-term solutions, informed by an understanding of opportunities to mitigate the impacts of anthropogenic drivers on ecosystems and adapt to new ecological realities.

Rights

Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of American Institute of Biological Sciences 2016.

This work was authored as part of the Contributor's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.

DOI
10.1093/biosci/biw035
Persistent Identifier
http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/17196
Citation Information
Mayer, A. L., Buma, B., Davis, A., Gagné, S. A., Loudermilk, E. L., Scheller, R. M., … Franklin, J. (2016). How Landscape Ecology Informs Global Land-Change Science and Policy. BioScience, biw035. http://doi.org/10.1093/biosci/biw035