Application of Landscape Ecology in Long Term Ecological Research

Abstract

The consequences of the growing world population imply an increasing demand on housing, industry, roads, airports, recreation, land, water resource, etc. Their impacts on natural landscapes and ecosystems are often significant by changing landscape pattern. The current environmental effects due to human activity, such as global change, ecosystem degradation, biodiversity loss, and others, have already arisen the attention from scientists. The long-term and potential environmental effects, however, were difficult to be identified without enough scientific data across both spatial and temporal scales. A primary goal of landscape ecology is to understand the reciprocal relationship between spatial pattern and ecological flows or processes. Achieving this goal may require the extrapolation of results obtained from small-scale experiments to broad scales. Scientific monitoring data makes a solid and convincing base for studying the dynamics of landscape spatial pattern and ecological processes and the overall environmental effects of human activities. In this paper, the Chinese Ecosystem Research Network (CERN) was introduced. It lays a foundation for landscape ecological research by offering long-term monitoring data. At the same time, how to effectively use the CERN to deepen landscape ecological researches was discussed in detail. Finally, perspectives for the development of landscape ecological researches in China were enumerated with special attention to ecological monitoring and the coupling of landscape pattern and ecological processes.