BIO120H1 Chapter Notes - Chapter 24: Spatial Ecology, Landscape Ecology, Metapopulation
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BIO120H1 Full Course Notes
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Document Summary
Reading 24: spatial ecology & conservation: landscapes are patchy. Spatial and temporal variation in the distribution and abundance of vital resources, as well as in geological and ecological processes, results in landscape spatial heterogeneity, often called habitat patchiness. In many terrestrial systems, patchiness involves spatial variation in topography, bedrock, soils, nutrients, or water that affects distribution of plant. Natural disturbances, including fires, floods, disease outbreaks, wind storms, and wave action also create patchiness, by altering the structure of populations, communities, and ecosystems & causing changes in resource availability or the physical environment. Species may generate their own patches, independent of any underlying environmental heterogeneity, by their clumped dispersal patterns. Spatial ecology centers on how specific spatial arrangements of organisms, populations, and landscapes influences ecological dynamics. Spatial ecology is closely related to conservation biology because it emphasizes the study of habitat loss and fragmentation caused by human activities.
