La ecología del paisaje en México: logros, desafíos y oportunidades en las ciencias biológicas

Abstract

Landscape ecology is a rapidly growing interdisciplinary science, especially in Mexico. Despite its theoretical and applied relevance, no study to date has summarized the current and future state of the discipline in Mexico, especially in biological sciences. In this review, we identified: (i)regions, broad ecosystems and biological groups evaluated in Mexico; (ii)some applied, theoretical and conceptual contributions developed by Mexican authors; (iii)knowledge gaps and theoretical and methodological challenges, and (iv)some future perspectives. We found 472 scientific papers on the topic (1992-2016), mostly carried out with plants, mammals and birds in tropical ecosystems of Southeastern Mexico. Particularly notable are the evaluations on the patterns and causes of land use change and its consequences for biodiversity — studies of key relevance to identify potential threats and conservation strategies. Unfortunately, there is no empirical evidence for many of the theoretical models proposed to date. Furthermore, the geographic and taxonomic bias, and the lack of long-term, multi-scale and comparative studies have limited the progress of this discipline. Landscape ecology thus offers many challenges and research opportunities which, once served, will allow developing a science with higher predictive capacity to solve many environmental problems in Mexico and the world.