Adverse changes in rangeland vegetation can be considered as one of the criteria for land degradation. Some of these changes can be evaluated through monitoring the spatial changes of landscape parameters. This study aimed to investigate the landscape changes in Kezab rangelands of Yazd province, central Iran. Landsat satellite images of 1990, 2002, and 2013, and landscape metrics including Tot...

The textural discontinuity hypothesis (TDH) is based on the observation that animal body mass distributions exhibit discontinuities that may reflect the texture of the landscape available for exploitation. This idea has been extended to other complex systems, hinting that the identification and quantification of discontinuities in the distributions of appropriate variables may provide clues to ...

The article at hand identifies two kinds of problem difficulty in dynamic environments: discontinuities in the fitness landscape caused by moving optima and the discrepancy between tracking and optimization. These problem difficulties are supported by theoretical considerations and experimental findings. Various methods of resolution are discussed and a new adaptation method, namely the correct...

Landscape genetics is a new discipline that aims to provide information on how landscape and environmental features influence population genetic structure. The first key step of landscape genetics is the spatial detection and location of genetic discontinuities between populations. However, efficient methods for achieving this task are lacking. In this article, we first clarify what is conceptu...

The paper concerns the application of Genetic Algorithms and Genetic Programming to complex tasks such as automated design of control systems, where the space of solutions is non-trivial and may contain discontinuities. Several adaptive mechanisms for control of the search algorithm's parameters are proposed, investigated and compared to each other. It is shown that the proposed mechanisms are ...

An understanding of rates and mechanisms of incision and knickpoint retreat in bedrock rivers is fundamental to perceptions of landscape response to external drivers, yet only sparse field data are available. Here we present eye witness accounts and quantitative surveys of rapid, amphitheatre-headed gorge formation in unweathered granite from the overtopping of a rock-cut dam spillway by small-...

An understanding of rates and mechanisms of incision and knickpoint retreat in bedrock rivers is fundamental to perceptions of landscape response to external drivers, yet only sparse field data are available. Here we present eye witness accounts and quantitative surveys of rapid, amphitheatre-headed gorge formation in unweathered granite from the overtopping of a rock-cut dam spillway by small-...

Landscape features of anthropogenic or natural origin can influence organisms' dispersal patterns and the connectivity of populations. Understanding these relationships is of broad interest in ecology and evolutionary biology and provides key insights for habitat conservation planning at the landscape scale. This knowledge is germane to restoration efforts for the New England cottontail (Sylvil...

Discontinuous structure in landscapes may cause discontinuous, aggregated species body-mass patterns, reflecting the scales of structure available to animal communitieswithin a landscape. Empirical analyses have shown that the location of species within bodymass aggregations, which reflect this scalespecific organization, is non-random with regard to several ecological phenomena, including spec...