Landscape ecology has different directions. Partly it is patial ecology, detecting spatial patterns and processes in ecology, among species and habitats. however, it also goes further. It also includes human action and management in the research and therefore has a very important influence on land use planning,,land managment and nature conservation. It is the science that can link ecology to road planning as it considers fragmentation, metapopulation and planning decisions. In Europe it is an important source for planning information. Another aspect is that it links spatial statistics and earth observation to ecology. This allows development of estimates of stock and change in habitats. Many references can be found on this through Landscape Ecology or through our institute download service (for reports) see www.wur.nl and www.alterra.wur.nl (under publications).

Yes. But many ecologists may not be fully convinced because they probably feel that the concept involved in landscape ecology is based on spatial metrics that do not provide quantitative estimates of many processes.

Landscape ecology has different directions. Partly it is patial ecology, detecting spatial patterns and processes in ecology, among species and habitats. however, it also goes further. It also includes human action and management in the research and therefore has a very important influence on land use planning,,land managment and nature conservation. It is the science that can link ecology to road planning as it considers fragmentation, metapopulation and planning decisions. In Europe it is an important source for planning information. Another aspect is that it links spatial statistics and earth observation to ecology. This allows development of estimates of stock and change in habitats. Many references can be found on this through Landscape Ecology or through our institute download service (for reports) see www.wur.nl and www.alterra.wur.nl (under publications).

Many thanks Jongman, Rogers and Patel! I have been working in the field of Ecology since 1995, still I like to, feel better to think myself as an Ecologist, or an explorer in this great field. In the last 5 years, I used Landscape Ecological approach to solve Ecological Complexities in Landscape to Regional scale and found the techniques are so useful. In particular, it is so important for the decision making processes. Many cases, I found the approach is highly time and cost effective. However, in many cases for a comprehensive endpoints, we may need to go further analysis as per the exclusive analysis as mentioned by Rogers. But, it may not be a limiting factor rather a way to work together for solving many spatial problems, cause- oikos refer to the spatial extent, from site, country, landscape to the regional.

My another question, whether we are ego dependent! Otherwise, we may work together for solving many issues. Ecosystem goods and services, environmental management, climate change issues, spatial pattern and processes, disaster management...and so on, many such issues are directly related to ecology and hence ecologist must come in front. Paradoxically, we found we are not in the front, rather peoples from other disciplines are leading those!! I am not worried for the position, but will the issues be solved in this way for the betterment of our future world!!!!

Remote sensing techniques are very useful and cost effective to find out the changes between decade or more than that, extent of each type land-uses and so on . This information gives use some idea of the study area without going to the field and for further analysis field data also integrated with this tool. I think that many ecologist now adapt this techniques.

I appreciate the answer of Rob Jongman very much and I will try not to be redundant. I only want to add that the part of your question " ..... emerging ecological science" is dispensable. The flagship journal "Landscape Ecology" has been founded in 1987 and the International Association of Landscape Ecology (IALE, http://www.landscape-ecology.org/ ) celebrated its 25th anniversary .....

In my understanding, Landscape Ecology is well established although an epistemological debate is ongoing. This may exactly be grounded in the fact which Rob Jongman also pointed out: in natural science we are seeking to justifiy something through "true belief", i.e. in order to know that a given proposition is true, one must not only believe the relevant true proposition, but one must also have a good reason for doing so. This is why L.E. is so fascinating also the interdisciplinary discussions can be quite tedious.

I completely agree wth Thomas Blaschke. If you see the presentations given at the IALE World congress last yer in Beijing, you ecome aware of the fast development and the truely integrative character of Landscape Ecology. It is not science per se, but science with a societal impact

I think landscape ecology has a window of opportunity to become a tool to solve real problems. To deal with such challenge landscape ecology should strengthened its integration with other social sciences and develop more mechanistic approaches. These approaches should allow landscape ecology to be used in real world applications to derive predictions that can be tested against real data and reference future states that can guide real world decisions.

Thanks again Prof. Jongman and Prof. Blaschke, I am really impressed to get your comments on this issue. I also agree that LE is an established discipline and no need to discuss further for its credibility and acceptance. I think this discussion will answer many questions in mind, and many will open their views. Thanks again

I would like to suggest that with present state of urbanization and globalization, there is a very important need to study landscape as it is a significant component of the ecosystem. A small change in the landscape could alter the whole community structure, unplanned urbanization would disturb the landscape, and pollution on the other hand could be managed through proper landscape planning. Hence with such an interdisciplinary use, landscape ecology is virtuously related to the society, ecology as well as economy of a region.

As UK chair of the International Association for Landscape Ecology, I would encourage you to check out the proceedings of a number of our recent conferences, which are very relevant to this question (visit http://iale.org.uk/node/71). To give you a taster, here is the abstract of my closing address to our 2010 conference on 'Future landscape ecology'.

"In a society where people are free to exploit common resources, individual self-interest compels everyone to make ever greater use of them. Despite the Convention on Biological Diversity’s target to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, it was predictable that this ‘tragedy of the commons’ would prevent its achievement. The challenge for future landscape ecology is to help create a new narrative for conserving the natural environment, establishing it as the basis for all useful function. If future landscape ecology can help provide governments with better information on ecosystem services, then common tragedy might be averted through imposing solutions. But perhaps the greater need is for future landscape ecology to encourage understanding among those who manage land, water or resources. Using information to empower and motivate them to work together may be our best hope for sustaining and restoring the natural world on which society and biodiversity depend".

Exactly Richard Smithers, many thanks for your nice writing in this issue. I also realized the thing and working with my knowledge and expertise to uphold the theme. You may also see my little effort in this arena http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X10001470. I am a bit unfortunate not being able to attend this event (iale, uk) and EcoSummit2012 despite having strong will to attend, which might help me to better understand and to get more strength to work in the field.

Yes, as we understood that LE have a great potential, we have to work hard to conserve our natural environment, biodiversity and ecological processes using LE tools and approaches. Obviously, we have to maintain a good network as well, IALE is maintaining, many of us have to come forward to be within the loop.

Thanks again

Most landscape ecologists come from a natural science background, but are keen to take a broader perspective. The ecosystem service approach, which I feel fits landscape ecology well, takes an anthropocentric view of what the environment does for us, covering provision (food, water, material, space, etc.), regulation (maintaining acidity, nutrients, water, etc.), support (process such as the water cycle, soil production, etc.) and cultural services (education, recreation and religion). Biodiversity can ‘fit’ into each of the categories in different forms or be given its own category. The difficulty is that as scientists we tend to focus on the start of the list which are things we can easily(!) measure and understand. Nowadays decisions taken to manage landscapes or regions tend to be evidence based to minimise or justify contentious decisions. Landscape ecology is an effective vehicle for addressing these serious issues, but still needs to improve its integration with the cultural services and economics.

David, well expressed!

One small addition/question: Isn't the Ecosystem Service (ES) Approach L.E.? It may bring in new people and some disciplines which may want to avoid the L.E. terminology but I cannot see ES as being "outside L.E."

Thomas

Hi Thomas, I agree, I think ES is (and always has been) part of LE, but just as there are people who don't like the term LE and want to change it (e.g. to large scale ecology - but that misses the anthropocentric character) then there are people who don't like ES as a term and want to change it (e.g. to environmental services as they don't think there is a general understanding of ecosystems). I think what we have to do is avoid getting hung up on the terms and try to work with people and disciplines whatever their perspective. Inter-disciplinary research has to be give and take.