Biogeomorphology

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Biogeomorphology and ecogeomorphology are the study of interactions between organisms and the development of landforms, and are thus fields of study within geomorphology and ichnology. Organisms affect geomorphic processes in a variety of ways. For example, trees can reduce landslide potential where their roots penetrate to underlying rock, plants and their litter inhibit soil erosion, biochemicals produced by plants accelerate the chemical weathering of bedrock and regolith, and marine animals cause the bioerosion of coral. The study of the interactions between marine biota and coastal landform processes is called coastal biogeomorphology.

Phytogeomorphology is an aspect of biogeomorphology that deals with the narrower subject of how terrain affects plant growth. In recent years a large number of articles have appeared in the literature dealing with how terrain attributes affect crop growth and yield in farm fields, and while they don't use the term phytogeomorphology the dependencies are the same. Precision agriculture models where crop variability is at least partially defined by terrain attributes can be considered as phytogeomorphological precision agriculture.

Overview

Biogeomorphology is a multidisciplinary focus of geomorphology that takes research approaches from both geomorphology and ecology. It is a sub discipline of geomorphology. Biogeomorphology can be synthesized into two distinct approaches:

1. The influences that geomorphology plays on the biodiversity and distribution of flora and fauna.

2. The influences that biotic factors have on the way landforms are developed.

There has been much work on these approaches such as; the effect that parent material has on the distribution of plants, the increase of precipitation due to an influx of transpiration, the stability of a hillslope due to the abundance of vegetation or, the increase of sedimentation due to a beaver dam. Biogeomorphology shows the axiomatic relationship between certain land forming processes and biotic factors. That is, certain geomorphic processes shape the biota and biotic factors can shape land forming processes.

Origins and early work

The earliest work related to biogeomorphology was Charles Darwin's 1881 book titled ''The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms {{R from other capitalisation ...