Background concepts of the landscape research performed at the Department of Geography of the University of Ghent are described, discussed and illustrated with some examples. The integrated approach is based upon holism, perception and evolution. Holism allows the link between landscape ecology and perception. It explains the interaction between structure and functioning and the importance of t...

• What is the range and pattern of variability in landscape structure under “natural” and anthropogenic disturbance regimes? RMLANDS provides a mechanistic approach for evaluating disturbance and succession processes over broad spatial (100,000's of ha) and temporal scales (100's of years) not possible or practical with empirical field studies. Moreover, RMLANDS allows us to ask “what if” quest...

The term “landscape structure” refers to the configuration of vegetation and other land features over a large land area (usually an extent of many square kilometers). A landscape can be regarded as a mosaic composed of patches of different kinds— for example, different forest types, landforms, or human-built structures such as roads. The scientific discipline of landscape ecology is concerned w...

Quantifying landscape pattern and its change is essential for the monitoring and assessment of ecological consequences of land use change and human interference. The changing characteristics of landscape structure in the Haihe River Basin (HRB), China, during 1990 to 2000 were detected by using satellite remote sensing based land use data. Key landscape indices were selected to characterize the...

Rural history and implementing agri-policy are mirrored in an agricultural landscape. No doubt, the basic structure and composition of agricultural landscape depends on local climatic and natural conditions. There is a close connection between agricultural landscape management and biodiversity management at the gene, species and habitat level. The purpose of this paper is to present four ways t...

The notion of an adaptive landscape has proved to be a valuable concept in theoretical investigations of evolutionary change, combinatorial optimization, and the physics of disordered systems. Landscape theory has emerged as an attempt to devise suitable mathematical structures for describing the \static" properties of landscapes as well as their in uence on the dynamics of adaptation. Here we ...

In fragmented landscapes, plant species richness may depend not only on local habitat conditions but also on landscape structure. In addition, both present and past landscape structure may be important for species richness. There are, however, only a few studies that have investigated the relative importance of all of these factors. The aim of this study was to examine the effect of current and...

agricultural landscapes with the green veins and forests patches are forming many parts of european landscapes. in spite of many ecological, economic and agricultural advantages of these elements, they have been changed due to agricultural intensification. we studied changes of these elements, their relations with agricultural activities, farming systems and land use of the adjacent parcel in t...