Landscape Ecology - house journal of IALE
The Association works in close collaboration with Springer to produce the major journal in the field, Landscape Ecology . This journal, first time published in 1984, became the flagship journal in the rapidly developing fields of ecology and sustainability science of landscapes. The journal focuses on highly inter- and transdisciplinary studies, aggregating expertise from biological, geophysical, and social sciences to explore the formation, dynamics and consequences of spatial heterogeneity in natural and human-dominated landscapes. Members get free access to the journal. Below you'll find the most recentc articles published in Landscape Ecology:
| Latest Results | ||
| The latest content available from Springer | ||
| Causal machine learning methods for understanding land use and land cover change | ||
| Sonntag, 28. Dezember 2025 | ||
| Context Understanding the roles of different drivers in land use and land cover change (LULCC) is a critical research challenge. However, as LULCC is the result of complex, socio-ecological processes and is highly context dependent, achieving such understanding is difficult. This is particularly true for causal modelling approaches that are critical for effective policy formulation. Causal machine learning (ML) methods could help address this challenge, but are as yet... | ||
| Canopy height and its spatial heterogeneity predominantly determine damages to tropical forests by major hurricanes, with a mitigating legacy effect of drought | ||
| Sonntag, 28. Dezember 2025 | ||
| Context The severity of damage to tropical forests by hurricanes is determined by the interplay between disturbance strength and resistance of forests. While major hurricanes often follow a warming period with severe drought, there has been no quantitative assessment of the legacy of drought on responses of tropical forests to major hurricanes. Objectives We aim to derive factors that determine landscape... | ||
| Daily and monthly movement patterns shape bobcat home range size in two different landscapes | ||
| Sonntag, 28. Dezember 2025 | ||
| Context Animal home ranges result from decisions made in response to environmental conditions and may expand or shift in fragmented landscapes where movement is more energetically costly. Although many mesocarnivores have recolonized fragmented agricultural areas of the central United States following extirpations, how they adjust movement to these altered landscapes remains unclear. Objectives We aimed to... | ||
| Accounting for spatial heterogeneity in trapping pressure and its impact on population dynamics of sympatric pine and stone martens | ||
| Sonntag, 28. Dezember 2025 | ||
| Context The consequences of human exploitation of animal populations remain poorly understood, particularly for populations experiencing spatially-varying harvesting intensity and exposure. If unaccounted for, this heterogeneity may lead to inappropriate harvesting policies. Methods We developed a spatially-explicit individual-based model to evaluate the effects of such spatially heterogeneous harvesting on the... | ||
| Scale-dependent foraging behaviour and habitat associations of two sympatric marine top predators | ||
| Samstag, 27. Dezember 2025 | ||
| Context Theoretical research has considered how animals should optimise foraging strategies to maximise fitness, adapting search scale to exploit different habitats and minimise competition. Empirical studies have described multi-scale area-restricted search (ARS) strategies for some species, but the physical and biological mechanisms underpinning such behaviour are rarely studied. Objectives Our objectives were... | ||
| Data integration reveals that a statewide corridor initiative maintains greater wild turkey relative abundance and occupancy | ||
| Mittwoch, 24. Dezember 2025 | ||
| Context Wildlife corridors have been proposed to strategically conserve wildlife habitat such that it facilitates connectivity between populations to allow dispersal, geneflow, and species migrations as the climate changes. However, few empirical examples have demonstrated the effectiveness of landscape-scale wildlife corridors. The Florida Wildlife Corridor (FLWC) includes 7.3 million hectares of connected undeveloped lands in Florida, USA, offering a real-world opportunity... | ||
| Does building height influence bird diversity in urban landscapes? | ||
| Mittwoch, 24. Dezember 2025 | ||
| Context Urbanization impacts biodiversity through changes in horizontal and vertical structures. While impervious cover is well-studied, the role of building height remains underexplored at a broad scale. Objectives This study aimed (1) to assess whether building height differed statistically from impervious cover and NDVI in explaining bird diversity in cities, and (2) to assess the impacts of building height in conjunction with... | ||
| A review of alternative cost layers for spatial prioritization tools | ||
| Mittwoch, 24. Dezember 2025 | ||
| Context Systematic Conservation Planning (SCP) seeks to optimize biodiversity outcomes under real-world constraints, including limited financial and social resources. Integrating cost data into spatial prioritization tools is essential for effective conservation, yet current applications lack consistent guidance on the selection and use of cost metrics. Objectives This study aims to develop a structured roadmap for cost... | ||
| Winner–loser species replacements increase rodent diversity in landscape mosaics exposed to slash-and-burn agriculture | ||
| Dienstag, 23. Dezember 2025 | ||
| Context Slash-and-burn agriculture creates heterogeneous landscapes composed of old-growth forests, secondary forests, and agricultural lands. In these mosaics, some species are extirpated (loser species) and replaced by disturbance-adapted species (winners). However, the community-level outcome of this winner–loser species replacement and its local and landscape drivers remain poorly understood. Objectives... | ||
| Spatial heterogeneity and driving factors of ecosystem service trade-offs in Beijing’s ecological conservation area: Insights for spatial planning and management | ||
| Samstag, 20. Dezember 2025 | ||
| Context Although rapid urbanization affects ecosystems’ ability to provide multiple ecosystem services (ESs), potentially intensifying trade-offs or fostering synergies among them, the spatial variation of urbanization’s impact on ES trade-offs remains underexplored. The urban–rural gradient effectively depicts the shift from human-dominated landscapes to more natural ones, providing insight into the spatial heterogeneity of urbanization’s influence on ES... | ||
| Healthy estuaries enhance climate change resilience for fish within South African coastal seascapes | ||
| Samstag, 20. Dezember 2025 | ||
| Context The capacity for estuaries in coastal seascapes to locally mitigate the effects of regional climate change should be considered in adaptation planning. Objectives and methods In this paper we review work undertaken in South Africa’s warm-temperate estuaries to examine factors that promote climate change resilience for estuaries and... | ||
| Landscape genetics in plants: challenges and insights from the XX International Botanical Congress | ||
| Donnerstag, 18. Dezember 2025 | ||
| Context Plant landscape genetics is a rapidly developing discipline that examines how habitat loss and fragmentation due to anthropogenic pressures shape plant genetic diversity, gene flow, and potential adaptation. Despite its potential, many aspects remain underexplored, limiting its effective incorporation into conservation planning. Objectives This study aims to identify current trends, challenges, and practical opportunities... | ||
| Harvest-induced changes in forest landscapes does not fully compensate for climate-induced increase in landscape flammability in eastern Canada | ||
| Donnerstag, 18. Dezember 2025 | ||
| Context Wildfires are a major natural disturbance in boreal ecosystems, strongly influenced by both climate-driven fire weather and fuel characteristics. While climate change is intensifying fire-prone weather conditions, other natural and human-related disturbances, as well as natural evolution of forest stands, are reshaping forest composition, potentially altering landscape flammability. The net effect of these opposing forces remains uncertain in eastern Canada's boreal... | ||
| Fireworks on the Tibetan Plateau: when spectacle violates place | ||
| Freitag, 12. Dezember 2025 | ||
| Landscape fragmentation and spatial reorganization on a tourism-driven coral island: an integrated analysis of xiaoliuqiu using intensity and dynamic patch methods | ||
| Freitag, 12. Dezember 2025 | ||
| Context Tourism development on small islands creates land use pressures within constrained environments, leading to landscape fragmentation and altered connectivity patterns. However, our understanding of tourism-driven spatial reorganization processes on small islands is limited. Understanding these tourism-driven land use change mechanisms is important for promoting sustainability in vulnerable island ecosystems. Objectives... | ||
| Designing marine reserve networks to mitigate larval dispersal volatility with the connectivity portfolio effect | ||
| Mittwoch, 10. Dezember 2025 | ||
| Context Marine reserve networks designed to enhance larval dispersal provide important biodiversity benefits. Designs are commonly based on time-averaged means of dispersal estimates. It is unclear whether they capture the connectivity portfolio effect, by which temporal variation in individual reserve performance is buffered by the entire network. Objectives To evaluate the implications of dispersal... | ||
| Perceived urban microhabitat heterogeneity impacts carabid beetle communities | ||
| Montag, 08. Dezember 2025 | ||
| Context The habitat heterogeneity hypothesis predicts that increased environmental heterogeneity promotes biodiversity by providing more niches. However, few studies have examined whether human perceptions of heterogeneity align with the ecological responses of arthropods. Objectives We investigated how perceived habitat heterogeneity translates into environmental variables. Then, we explored the effects of perceived habitat... | ||
| Biological invasions limit the effectiveness of land abandonment as a conservation strategy | ||
| Montag, 08. Dezember 2025 | ||
| Context Agricultural intensification has led to widespread biodiversity loss. The concepts of rewilding and land sparing suggest that agricultural land abandonment may reverse biodiversity decline in intensively managed agricultural areas. For example, the Green Deal policy in the European Union mandates the abandonment of 4% of agricultural land for nature conservation. Objectives We examined if scientific literature describes... | ||
| Integrated species distribution models predict motorized and non-motorized outdoor recreation across seasons | ||
| Freitag, 05. Dezember 2025 | ||
| Context Outdoor recreation is occurring at unprecedented levels, yet our knowledge of how to best monitor and analyse outdoor recreation is outdated. Inaccurate and unreliable recreation information affects everything from designing sustainable recreation plans to developing conservation strategies for sensitive or migratory species. Objectives We asked: (1) what are patterns of recreation intensity and how do... | ||
| Signal or noise? Minimising errors in image-based AI for marine ecosystem monitoring | ||
| Freitag, 05. Dezember 2025 | ||
| Purpose Monitoring large-scale benthic habitats using visual imagery requires extensive in-water surveying, significant human effort for manual data analysis, and the integration of artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning (ML) to enhance efficiency for time-series monitoring. Achieving accurate and measurable results from this process remains challenging due to biases and errors in the data capture, annotation, analysis, and automated reporting stages... | ||