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 | ||
| Effects of tree cover and crop diversity on biodiversity and food security in tropical agricultural landscapes | ||
| Montag, 21. Juli 2025 | ||
| Context Intensive agricultural practices are expected to exacerbate biodiversity loss while addressing rising global food demands. Agricultural landscapes, which integrate trees and crops, offer a promising solution by balancing biodiversity conservation with food production. Identifying attributes that enhance both biodiversity and food security is crucial for sustainable agricultural landscapes. Objectives This study assesses... | ||
| Connecting the dots: regional assessment of landscape connectivity in amphibian communities in Central Spain | ||
| Montag, 21. Juli 2025 | ||
| Context Habitat fragmentation and loss are major contributing factors in the global biodiversity crisis. This is especially concerning for low-dispersing organisms in anthropized areas, where artificial elements separating suitable habitat patches impede landscape connectivity, compromising long-term population viability. Robust comparative assessments of regional population connectivity can drive evidence-based conservation measures for biological communities, but require... | ||
| Climate sensitivity and area efficiency threshold of urban park cooling effects: a cross-climate zone comparative analysis | ||
| Montag, 21. Juli 2025 | ||
| Context Urban parks play a critical role in alleviating urban heat island effects, affecting human development directly and background climatic conditions greatly influence the intensity of their cooling effects. Objectives Here, focusing on 108 urban parks in four major cities across different climate zones—temperate subhumid continental climate (Shenyang city), north temperate continental monsoon climate (Zhengzhou city... | ||
| Spatial and temporal patterns of waterbird communities and impact of landscape features at multi-scale in rice fields of the Korean Peninsula | ||
| Samstag, 19. Juli 2025 | ||
| Context Rice paddies are considered important habitats for waterbirds because they offer abundant food resources and serve as stopover sites, breeding grounds, and wintering sites depending on spatial and temporal changes. Although rice paddies have been studied extensively as key habitats for waterbirds, research linking waterbird assemblages in rice paddies with multi-scale landscape factors remains insufficient. Objectives To... | ||
| Functional role of hedgerows and landscape composition in controlling a forest insect pest | ||
| Samstag, 19. Juli 2025 | ||
| Context Mixed forests exhibit greater resistance to pests compared to monospecific forests. However, stand-level diversification is challenging for managers. An alternative approach is to enhance tree diversity at the landscape scale. Objectives Building on the agricultural landscapes with hedgerows, we hypothesized that in a pine plantation landscape broadleaved hedgerows along pine stands locally increase tree diversity, while... | ||
| Climate change limits aboveground primary production and exacerbates post-abandonment woody encroachment in mountain grasslands | ||
| Samstag, 19. Juli 2025 | ||
| Context Mountain grasslands support diverse plant communities and multiple ecosystem services, but they are increasingly threatened by changes in land use and climate. Understanding how they respond to these drivers is essential for their sustainable management and conservation. Objectives This study investigates the long-term (1984–2023) dynamics of aboveground primary production and its stability in response to climate and... | ||
| Contributions of biocultural approaches to the sustainable planning of peri-urban water landscapes: a case study of Mexico City, Mexico | ||
| Freitag, 18. Juli 2025 | ||
| Context Rapid urbanization and land-use changes during the twentieth century led to policies aimed at integrating ecological and socio-cultural aspects into landscape management, particularly for water landscapes. However, in Latin America, these policies have had limited impact. Given the region’s biological and cultural diversity, there is a need for approaches that consider historical culture-nature relationships and promote comprehensive management of peri-urban... | ||
| Spatiotemporal dynamics and driving factors of cultivated land fragmentation across China from 1990 to 2020 | ||
| Freitag, 18. Juli 2025 | ||
| Context Cultivated land fragmentation (CLF) undermines agricultural productivity and food security, yet its spatiotemporal dynamics and driving forces remain poorly understood in diverse regions such as China. Objectives This study aims to quantify the spatiotemporal dynamics of CLF across China from 1990 to 2020, using a multidimensional Cultivated Land Fragmentation Index (CLFI) as its measurement, and to identify the dominant... | ||
| Landscape predictors of the genetic diversity and differentiation of four anuran species inhabiting anthropized environments | ||
| Mittwoch, 16. Juli 2025 | ||
| Context Human-modified environments play a crucial role in the conservation of biodiversity, but not all species exhibit the same genetic responses to anthropogenic pressures. Yet, the effect of landscape features on the genetic diversity of coexisting species, as well as their interactions, remain poorly understood. Objectives We evaluated how landscape features influence genetic diversity and differentiation, and if the... | ||
| Loss of forest cover leads to population isolation in an imperiled, headwater-specialist fish | ||
| Samstag, 12. Juli 2025 | ||
| Context Anthropogenic land use degrades matrix, habitat, and corridors and can disrupt dispersal rates or dispersal attempts, resulting in population connectivity patterns that reflect the cost (or resistance to dispersal) imposed from degraded conditions (isolation by resistance; IBR) rather than that of geographic distance alone (isolation by distance; IBD). Objectives As a small-bodied, benthic riverine species with... | ||
| Spatial patterns of above-ground biomass in tropical alpine páramo ecosystems using allometric models and LiDAR data | ||
| Freitag, 11. Juli 2025 | ||
| Context Páramos, high-elevation alpine ecosystems found in the northern Andes, are a biodiversity hotspot and play a crucial role in climate change mitigation due to their carbon storage capacity. Above-ground biomass (AGB) serves as a key indicator of ecosystem health and carbon sequestration potential. Accurate estimates of above-ground biomass are essential for understanding the variability of carbon storage across different páramo vegetation types, successional stages... | ||
| Woody vegetation patches in South Indian rice landscapes support tree-affiliated birds but reduce food production, with complex non-linear effects | ||
| Donnerstag, 10. Juli 2025 | ||
| Context Managing agricultural landscapes for sustainability while maintaining high yields is a pressing challenge. Protecting and restoring native or semi-natural vegetation patches is often a core strategy, but its impacts are seldom measured at scales appropriate to understanding yield-biodiversity relationships. Objectives In a predominantly rice-growing area of South India, we examined how increasing woody vegetation patch... | ||
| Changes in spatio-temporal patterns of urban habitat quality and their associations with bird species diversity under China's rapid urban expansion | ||
| Mittwoch, 09. Juli 2025 | ||
| Context As a major anthropogenic pressure, urban expansion significantly alters habitat quality and biodiversity. However, the effects of urban expansion on urban habitat quality (UHQ) and their relationship with bird diversity are not comprehensively understood, especially under rapid urbanization in China. Objectives Explore the spatiotemporal changes in UHQ of 320 cities in China from 1990 to 2020, as well as the relationship... | ||
| Multi-scale assessment and optimization of landscape connectivity in valley-basin systems | ||
| Montag, 07. Juli 2025 | ||
| Context River valley basin areas have historically been favored for human settlement and urban development due to their advantageous landscape ecosystems. Objective This study aims to elucidate spatial differentiation patterns and summarize the characteristic patterns of landscape ecological network connectivity within river valley basins. Methods Focusing on Nanning, a... | ||
| UAV-based aerial imagery to identify high quality habitats for the endangered Bog Fritillary butterfly | ||
| Freitag, 04. Juli 2025 | ||
| Context Land use intensification has led to a reduction of valuable open habitats over the past decades. The remaining habitats are mostly small and geographically isolated from each other. Bogs and wetland habitats have suffered particularly strongly under habitat destruction and reduction of habitat quality. The Bog Fritillary butterfly Boloria eunomia occurs on little-used wet meadows and bogs, and exists today mostly in small remnant populations in Central Europe... | ||
| Living with the enemy: the return of an apex predator is associated with habitat shifts in a common but rapidly declining prey population | ||
| Donnerstag, 03. Juli 2025 | ||
| Context The recovery of some apex predators has led to concerns for endangered prey that may have developed risky habitat selection tactics during predator-free eras. Environmental heterogeneity affects predator–prey coexistence, but spatial redistribution of prey has rarely been studied. A predator–prey system with white-tailed eagles and common eiders provides a unique opportunity to study the effect of returning predators on an abundant but declining prey population... | ||
| A long-term reinvestigation using camera traps reveals the resilience of mammalian communities in protected areas of the Maputaland Conservation Unit, South Africa | ||
| Donnerstag, 03. Juli 2025 | ||
| Context Repeated surveys to investigate mammalian assemblages at the landscape level are crucial to understanding how natural ecosystems function and regulate over time. Objectives We assessed mammalian species richness and occupancy changes across selected protected areas (PAs) in northern KwaZulu-Natal in the Maputaland Conservation Unit, South Africa. Methods We collected data... | ||
| Understanding the hydrological and landscape connectivity of lakes | ||
| Donnerstag, 03. Juli 2025 | ||
| Context Connectivity is a key property of water, enabling the flow of energy, material and individuals within and between sites. Climate and land use changes can profoundly modify connectivity, yet few studies have quantified the patterns in connectivity among lakes at national scales. Objectives Our objectives were: i) to examine relationships between a broad range of lake connectivity metrics, ii) to evaluate how lake... | ||
| Using old fields for new purposes: ecosystem service outcomes of restoring marginal agricultural land to forests | ||
| Dienstag, 01. Juli 2025 | ||
| Context Human activities, particularly intensive agriculture, have caused significant environmental degradation, reduced ecosystem diversity, and increased vulnerability to global change. Recent international policies, such as the Global Biodiversity Framework’s 30 × 30 target, advocate for nature-based solutions (NbS) such as ecological restoration to address these impacts. In agricultural landscapes, however, there are concerns that restoration may impact food... | ||
| DynamicPATCH: method and software for spatially explicit dynamic patch transition characterization | ||
| Dienstag, 01. Juli 2025 | ||
| Context Decades of research have used spatial pattern metrics at time points, such as those in FRAGSTATS, to measure the net change of landscape configuration and composition during time intervals. However, metrics at time points fail to quantify a time interval’s gross change, which can be substantially larger than net change between two time points. The field of landscape ecology has lacked a conceptual framework and accompanying software to characterize patterns of gross... | ||