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 human-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes th ...
features in a landscape mapping and classification system. As such, they represent relatively
homogeneous, 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) is a system formed by Organism, organisms in interaction with their Biophysical environment, environment. The Biotic material, biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and en ...
, 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 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[ "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 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 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 organizatio ...
"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 natural science of the relationships among living organisms and their Natural environment, environment. Ecology considers organisms at the individual, population, community (ecology), community, ecosystem, and biosphere lev ...
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 Resource (biology), resources an ...
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 flora (plants), plants and fauna (animals), animals. ''Biotope'' is almost synonymous with the term habitat (ecology), "habitat", which ...
*
Ecotype
Ecotypes are organisms which belong to the same species but possess different phenotypical features as a result of environmental factors such as elevation, climate and predation. Ecotypes can be seen in wide geographical distributions and may event ...
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