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Abstract
‘Landscape ecology’ is an ambiguous term commonly used to refer to different research agendas in different disciplines. Here we seek to contribute to the debate about the proper subject matter and method of landscape ecology by identifying and discussing six distinct conceptions of landscape ecology, particularly with regard to their respective understanding of ‘landscape’. Our analysis is based on an acknowledgment of the cultural contexts in which the idea of landscape has evolved. Our aims are i) to dispute definitions which involve a purely natural scientific interpretation of the term ‘landscape’; ii) to challenge the increasingly popular view that landscape ecology is (or should be) an inter- or transdisciplinary science or research programme comprising not only several natural sciences but also social sciences and humanities; iii) as an alternative to both of these definitions, to highlight and define a landscape ecology research agenda that is widespread but has not yet been explicitly defined, namely, landscape ecology as ‘ecology guided by cultural meanings of lifeworldly landscapes’.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Corrado Battisti and two anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback on earlier versions of this paper.
Notes
The terms ‘interdisciplinary’ and ‘transdisciplinary’ have both been defined in various ways (see e.g. Baumgärtner & Becker, Citation2005; Stokols, Citation2006; Wiens, 2006). In keeping with our line of argument, ‘landscape ecology’ should not be used to designate inter- or transdisciplinary research in the sense of any of these definitions. In the following, we speak of interdisciplinary research when several sciences address the same topic, each using its own disciplinary concepts and methods.
Forman models landscapes as habitat patches and corridors embedded in a background matrix (patch-corridor-matrix model) (Forman, Citation1995; Forman & Godron, Citation1981, Citation1986). This model, which draws upon island biogeography theory (MacArthur & Wilson, Citation1967), has been extended since then to account for much more complex interactions among landscape elements, as in the development of landscape mosaic theory (see Wiens, Citation1995a, Citation1995b, Citation2002).
The quotation marks indicate that the term ‘landscape’ in conception 3 is used metaphorically.
See particularly Herder (SW/1877–1913) vol. IV, p. 204 f., V, p. 505/509, VIII, p. 210, XII, p. 8, XIII, pp. 253–318/347–349/363/370, XIV, pp. 38/83 f./227, XVII, pp.122/287, XVIII, p. 308.
In Germany, Herder's cultural theory, which refers to history as legitimating moral values, had a major influence not only on academic geography but also on the lifeworldly perception of landscape. In the USA, by contrast, Sauer's approach had a major influence on academic geography but not much impact on lifewordly landscape perception because here the European approach of history as legitimating moral values was largely rejected (see Olwig, Citation2005).
Since the cultural values attached to nature emerge not from ecological processes but from social processes, we regard it as misleading, if not false, to speak of cultural ecosystem services or values. Instead, one should speak of the cultural values attached to nature or to a landscape.