Landscape Ecology in Theory and Practice: Pattern and Process

by Robert H. Gardner, Monica G. Turner, Robert H Gardner, et al.

Book Overview

Table of Contents Chapter 1. Introduction to Landscape Ecology and Scale What is Landscape Ecology? Roots of Landscape Ecology Intellectual Foundations of Landscape Ecology Landscape Ecology Matures... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0387951237
• ISBN13: 9780387951232
• Release Date: May 2003
• Publisher: Springer
• Length: 406 Pages
• Weight: 1.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 6.9" x 9.9"

Customer Reviews

The book to have

This is the excellent book on Landscape Ecology. Instead of being an edited collection of research articles, this volume's chapters follow logically and treat the material comphrensively, while giving references at every turn to researchers books or articles. Monica, whose research publications are extensive, writes this introductory book well. The images in this book are, however, in black and white. There is an accompanying CD of color plates, but they are no bigger then those in the text and are fairly useless. I was hoping she would have some data for her book's examples and perhaps even a whole project we might use in one of the current software tools. Still this can't take away from the fact that this is the book I've been searching for. But a very "first" primer in this subject is a chapter written by Monica - "What is Landscape Ecology" for an 1998 Oxford "Ecology" text. You can download this for free. See item 76 of the publications page on Monica website ([...]).

Highly recommended

One of the most comprehensive landscape ecology materials existing on the market nowadays. Ideal for landscape ecology beginners or for for anybody who wonders what fragmentation, ecological processes and patterns are.

Landscape Ecology in Theory and Practice

This is an excellent book that intrigues the informed while explaining complex information in such a way that novice readers can follow along.

Valuable Summary

I use this book as the recommended text for both undergraduate and graduate courses in landscape ecology. It has a useful synthesis of recent trends in the field and particularly good chapters on scale, landscape metrics and disturbance. The accompanying CD has jpeg versions of most of the figures, which is handy for preparing lectures, although the quality of some of the digital images from CD (especially graphs and line charts) isn't so great. The literature review is thorough without being overwhelming, so it's a good entry point into the professional literature in most areas of landscape ecology. My main criticism is that the writing style is somewhat dense; I didn't find it easy to read from cover to cover. People looking for a cursory introduction to the field may do better to start with an alternative text. As a teaching and reference text for landscape ecology, however, I think this book is the best available.

A Must-Have for Anyone into Landscape Ecology or GIS

If the credentials of the authors didn't convince of the quality of this book, I'm not sure I can. I will say that I have read and re-read the book several times, and that it's a vital resource in our laboratory. From the various issues of scaling to what analyses do what, this book is an excellent resource of theories and technologies involved in Landscape Ecology.