Ecotopes are the smallest ecologically distinct
landscape
A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...
features in a landscape mapping and classification system. As such, they represent relatively
homogeneous
Homogeneity and heterogeneity are concepts often used in the sciences and statistics relating to the uniformity of a substance or organism. A material or image that is homogeneous is uniform in composition or character (i.e. color, shape, siz ...
, spatially explicit landscape functional units that are useful for stratifying landscapes into ecologically distinct features for the measurement and mapping of landscape structure, function and change.
Like
ecosystems
An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...
, ecotopes are identified using flexible criteria, in the case of ecotopes, by criteria defined within a specific ecological mapping and classification system. Just as ecosystems are defined by the interaction of
biotic and
abiotic
In biology and ecology, abiotic components or abiotic factors are non-living chemical and physical parts of the environment that affect living organisms and the functioning of ecosystems. Abiotic factors and the phenomena associated with them under ...
components, ecotope classification should stratify landscapes based on a combination of both biotic and abiotic factors, including vegetation, soils, hydrology, and other factors. Other parameters that must be considered in the classification of ecotopes include their period of stability (such as the number of years that a feature might persist), and their spatial scale (minimum mapping unit).
The first definition of ecotope was made by
Thorvald Sørensen
Thorvald (Thorwald) Julius Sørensen (4 July 1902 – 21 June 1973) was a Danish botanist and evolutionary biologist. Biography
Sørensen was professor at the Royal Veterinary and Agricultural University 1953–1955 and at the University of Co ...
[ "To designate the fundamental unit of ecological plant sociology I propose the term ecotope, viz. the field delimited as an object of investigation within a given ecosystem (Tansley)"] in 1936.
Arthur Tansley
Sir Arthur George Tansley FLS, FRS (15 August 1871 – 25 November 1955) was an English botanist and a pioneer in the science of ecology.
Educated at Highgate School, University College London and Trinity College, Cambridge, Tansley taught a ...
picked this definition up in 1939 and elaborated it. He stated that an ecotope is "the particular portion,
.. of the physical world that forms a home for the organisms which inhabit it". In 1945
Carl Troll
Carl Troll (24 December 1899 in Gabersee – 21 July 1975 in Bonn), was a German geographer, brother of botanist Wilhelm Troll. From 1919 until 1922 Troll studied biology, chemistry, geology, geography and physics at the Universität in München. ...
first applied the term to
landscape ecology
Landscape ecology is the science of studying and improving relationships between ecological processes in the environment and particular ecosystems. This is done within a variety of landscape scales, development spatial patterns, and organizati ...
"the smallest spatial object or component of a geographical landscape". Other academics clarified this to suggest that an ecotope is ecologically homogeneous and is the smallest ecological land unit that is relevant.
The term "patch" was used in place of the term "ecotope", by Foreman and Godron (1986), who defined a patch as "a nonlinear surface area differing in appearance from its surroundings". However, by definition, ecotopes must be identified using a full suite of ecosystem characteristics: patches are a more general type of spatial unit than ecotopes.
In
ecology
Ecology () is the study of the relationships between living organisms, including humans, and their physical environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community, ecosystem, and biosphere level. Ecology overlaps wi ...
an ecotope has also been defined as "The species relation to the full range of environmental and biotic variables affecting it" (Whittaker et al., 1973), but the term is rarely used in this context, due to confusion with the
ecological niche
In ecology, a niche is the match of a species to a specific environmental condition.
Three variants of ecological niche are described by
It describes how an organism or population responds to the distribution of resources and competitors (for ...
concept.
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See also
*
Biotope
A biotope is an area of uniform environmental conditions providing a living place for a specific assemblage of plants and animals. ''Biotope'' is almost synonymous with the term "habitat", which is more commonly used in English-speaking countrie ...
*
Ecotype
In evolutionary ecology, an ecotype,Greek: ''οίκος'' = home and ''τύπος'' = type, coined by Göte Turesson in 1922 sometimes called ecospecies, describes a genetically distinct geographic variety, population, or race within a specie ...
References
Bibliography
*Bastian, O., C. Beierkuhlein, H. J. Klink, J. Löfffler, U. Steinhardt, M. Volk, and M. Wilmking. 2003. Landscape structures and processes. Pages 49–112 in O. Bastian and U. Steinhardt, eds. Development and Perspectives of Landscape Ecology. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
*Farina, A. 1998. Principles and Methods in Landscape Ecology. Chapman & Hall, London; New York.
*Foreman, R. and Godron, M. 1986. Landscape Ecology. Wiley, New York.
*Haber, W. 1994. System ecological concepts for environmental planning. Pages 49–67 in F. Klijn, ed. Ecosystem Classification for Environmental Management. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
*Ingegnoli, V. 2002. Landscape Ecology - a Widening Foundation: A Holistic Unifying Approach. Springer, Berlin; New York.
*Klijn, F., and H. A. Udo De Haes. 1994. A hierarchical approach to ecosystems and its implications for ecological land classification. Landscape Ecology 9: 89-104.
*Schmithüsen, J. 1948. "Fliesengefüge der Landschaft" und "Ökotop": Vorschläge zur begrifflichen Ordnung und zur Nomenklatur in der Landschaftsforschung. Berichte zur Deutschen Landeskunde (Bad Godesberg) 5: 74-83.
*Tansley, A. G. 1939. The British Isles and Their Vegetation. Vol. 1 of 2. Cambridge, United Kingdom. 494 pp.
*Troll, C. 1950. Die geografische landschaft und ihre erforschung. Pages 163-181. Studium Generale 3. Springer, Heidelberg, German Democratic Republic.
*Whittaker, R. H., S. A. Levin, and R. B. Root. 1973. Niche, habitat, and ecotope. American Naturalist 107: 321-338.
*Zonneveld, I. S. 1989. The land unit - A fundamental concept in landscape ecology, and its applications. Landscape Ecology 3: 67-86.
External links
{{wiktionary
A set of different definitions of the term "ecotope"Ecotope at Encyclopedia of Earth
Ecosystems