| dc.description.abstract | Landscape ecology continues to grow as an exciting discipline with much to offer
for solving pressing and emerging problems in environmental science. Much of the
strength of landscape ecology lies in its ability to address challenges over large
areas, over spatial and temporal scales at which decision-making often occurs. As
the world tackles issues related to sustainability and global change, the need for this
broad perspective has only increased. Furthermore, spatial data and spatial analysis
(core methods in landscape ecology) are critical for analyzing land-cover changes
worldwide. While spatial dynamics have long been fundamental to terrestrial conservation
strategies, land management, and reserve design, mapping and spatial
themes are increasingly recognized as important for ecosystem management in
aquatic, coastal, and marine systems. For these reasons, there is great demand for
training in spatial analysis tools accessible to a wide audience.
The first edition of this book, Learning Landscape Ecology: A Practical Guide
to Concepts and Techniques, was the first “hands-on” teaching guide for landscape
ecology. The book introduced a diversity of tools and software in the field. The text
sold over 5000 copies worldwide, was used at more than 55 universities, and had its
second printing in 2006. However, landscape ecology has grown and quantitative
methods have advanced substantially in the ensuing 15 years. In addition, this
revised second edition of Learning Landscape Ecology complements the release of
the second edition of Landscape Ecology in Theory and Practice (Turner and
Gardner 2015), which pairs nicely with this updated “hands-on” teaching guide.
This second edition of Learning Landscape Ecology is purposefully more applied
and international in its examples, approaches, perspectives, and contributors. It
includes new advances in quantifying landscape structure and connectivity (such as
graph theory), as well as labs that incorporate the latest scientific understanding of
ecosystem services, resilience, social-ecological landscapes, and even seascapes. Of
course, as before, the exercises emphasize easy-to-use, widely available software.
We have also included introductory exposure to spatial analyses using R programming
language in several labs. | en_US |
