Landscape limnology is the spatially explicit study of
lake
A lake is an area filled with water, localized in a basin, surrounded by land, and distinct from any river or other outlet that serves to feed or drain the lake. Lakes lie on land and are not part of the ocean, although, like the much large ...
s,
stream
A stream is a continuous body of water, body of surface water Current (stream), flowing within the stream bed, bed and bank (geography), banks of a channel (geography), channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream ...
s, and
wetland
A wetland is a distinct ecosystem that is flooded or saturated by water, either permanently (for years or decades) or seasonally (for weeks or months). Flooding results in oxygen-free (anoxic) processes prevailing, especially in the soils. The ...
s as they interact with freshwater, terrestrial, and human
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 ...
s to determine the effects of pattern on
ecosystem
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 ...
processes across temporal and spatial scales.
Limnology
Limnology ( ; from Greek λίμνη, ''limne'', "lake" and λόγος, ''logos'', "knowledge") is the study of inland aquatic ecosystems.
The study of limnology includes aspects of the biological, chemical, physical, and geological characteristi ...
is the study of inland water bodies inclusive of rivers, lakes, and wetlands; landscape limnology seeks to integrate all of these ecosystem types.
The
terrestrial
Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth.
Terrestrial may also refer to:
* Terrestrial animal, an animal that lives on land opposed to living in water, or sometimes an animal that lives on or near the ground, as opposed to ...
component represents spatial hierarchies of landscape features that influence which materials, whether solutes or organisms, are transported to
aquatic systems; aquatic connections represent how these materials are transported; and human activities reflect features that influence how these materials are transported as well as their quantity and temporal dynamics.
Foundation
The core principles or themes of
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 ...
provide the foundation for landscape limnology. These ideas can be synthesized into a set of four landscape ecology themes that are broadly applicable to any aquatic ecosystem type, and that consider the unique features of such ecosystems.
A landscape limnology framework begins with the premise of Thienemann (1925). Wiens (2002): freshwater ecosystems can be considered patches. As such, the location of these patches and their placement relative to other elements of the landscape is important to the ecosystems and their processes. Therefore, the four main themes of landscape limnology are:
# Patch characteristics: The characteristics of a freshwater ecosystem include its physical morphometry, chemical, and biological features, as well as its boundaries. These boundaries are often more easily defined for aquatic ecosystems than for terrestrial ecosystems (e.g., shoreline,
riparian zone
A riparian zone or riparian area is the interface between land and a river or stream. Riparian is also the proper nomenclature for one of the terrestrial biomes of the Earth. Plant habitats and communities along the river margins and banks ar ...
s, and emergent vegetation zone) and are often a focal-point for important ecosystem processes linking terrestrial and aquatic components.
# Patch context: The freshwater ecosystem is embedded in a complex terrestrial mosaic (e.g., soils, geology, and land use/cover) that has been shown to drive many within-ecosystem features and processes such as water chemistry, species richness, and primary and secondary productivity.
# Patch connectivity and directionality: The complex freshwater mosaic is connected to the particular patch of interest and defines the degree to which materials and organisms move across the landscape through freshwater connections. For freshwater ecosystems, these connections often display a strong directionality component that must be explicitly considered. For example, a specific wetland can be connected through groundwater to other wetlands or lakes, or through surface water connections directly to lakes and rivers, or both, and the directionality of those connections will strongly impact the movement of nutrients and biota.
# Spatial scale and hierarchy: Interactions among terrestrial and freshwater elements occur at multiple spatial scales that must be considered hierarchically. The explicit integration of hierarchy into landscape limnology is important because (a) many freshwater ecosystems are hierarchically organized and controlled by processes that are hierarchically organized,
[Tonn, W.M. 1990. Climate change and fish communities: A conceptual framework. Transactions of the American Fisheries Society 119:337-352] (b) most freshwater ecosystems are managed at multiple spatial scales, from policy set at the national level, to land management conducted at local scales, and (c) the degree of homogeneity among freshwater ecosystems can change in relation to the scale of observation.
Contributions to other fields
Findings from landscape limnology research are contributing to many facets of aquatic ecosystem research, management, and conservation. Landscape limnology is especially relevant for geographical areas with thousands of ecosystems (i.e. lake-rich regions of the world), in situations with a range of human disturbances, or when considering lakes, streams, and wetlands that are connected to other such ecosystems. For example, landscape limnology perspectives have contributed to the development of nutrient criteria for lakes, formation of classification systems that can be used to monitor the health of aquatic ecosystems, understanding ecosystem responses to environmental stressors,
[Baker, L. A., A.T. Herlihy, P.R. Kaufmann, and J.M. Eilers. 1991. Acidic lakes and streams in the United States: The role of acidic deposition. Science (Wash.) 252: 1151-1154] or explaining biogeographic patterns of community composition.
See also
*
Deposition (geology)
Deposition is the geological process in which sediments, soil and rocks are added to a landform or landmass. Wind, ice, water, and gravity transport previously weathered surface material, which, at the loss of enough kinetic energy in the fluid, ...
*
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 ...
*
Ecoregions
An ecoregion (ecological region) or ecozone (ecological zone) is an ecologically and geographically defined area that is smaller than a bioregion, which in turn is smaller than a biogeographic realm. Ecoregions cover relatively large areas of l ...
*
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 ...
*
Limnology
Limnology ( ; from Greek λίμνη, ''limne'', "lake" and λόγος, ''logos'', "knowledge") is the study of inland aquatic ecosystems.
The study of limnology includes aspects of the biological, chemical, physical, and geological characteristi ...
Notes
{{aquatic ecosystem topics, expanded=none
Landscape ecology
Limnology
Biogeography
Biology terminology
Aquatic ecology
Environmental terminology
Landscape
Riparian zone
Water and the environment