Principles and methods in landscape ecology

This book represents a synthesis of the Landscape Ecology, a relatively new ecological discipline, with the main goal to illustrate the foundaments to students and researchers. The book summarizes theories, concepts, principles and methods of the landscape ecology. It s composed by eight chapters: Introduction to landscape ecology, Theories and models incorporated in the landscape ecology framework, Scaling patterns and processes across landscapes, Emerging processes in the landscape, Emerging patterns in the landscape, Principles of landscape dynamics, Principles for landscape conservation, management and design, Methods in landscape ecology. This second edition has revisited and integrated the content of the former edition, in particular has updated the epistemological concepts and the literature. A special emphasis has been reserved to the “biocomplexity” paradigm including the landscape processes into the family of the non linear and self-organizing phenomena. The cognitive component of the landscape has been deeply discussed considering different cognitive theories and the environmental psychology approach. For instance the eco-field paradigm and the new dimension of the soundscape have been extensively discussed. At the same time the bio-semiotic approach to the study of the cognitive landscape has been considered. Special attention has been devoted to the landscape ontogenesis and to the uncertainty and the hierarchical structure of the complex systems.