Temporal Dimensions of Landscape Ecology Wildlife Responses to Variable Resources

About this book

Over the past twenty-five years, the effects of the spatial distribution and scaling of resources on animal populations have been increasingly studied in wildlife biology, landscape ecology, conservation biology, and related fields. However, spatial patterns change over time. In "Temporal Dimensions of Landscape Ecology: Wildlife Responses to Variable Resources", the authors discuss the effects that temporal changes in resources have on animal populations. Resource availability and quality are not distributed homogeneously over time, depending for example on predictable changes in seasons, mating and birthing cycles, unpredictable resource pulses and weather-related phenomena, ecological disturbances, and historical legacies.

'Temporal Dimensions of Landscape Ecology' brings together chapters that address the idea of current as well as historical temporal influences on resource availability, quality, and distribution. The authors draw attention to the neglected temporal issues so important to understanding species and community responses.

Contents

Introduction.- Part 1: Relevant Temporal Theory: Resource Acquisition and Animal Response in Dynamic Landscapes: Keeping the Books.- Pulsed Resources and Community Responses: An Exploration of Factors Influencing Outcomes.- Invoking the Ghosts of Landscapes Past to Understand the Landscape Ecology of the Present?and the Future.- Modeling Adaptive Behavior in Event-Driven Environments: Temporally Explicit Individual-Based Ecology.- Temporal Scaling in Complex Systems: Resonant Frequencies and Biotic Variability.- Part 2: Statistics of Time: Using Statistical Models to Study Temporal Dynamics of Animal?Landscape Relations.- Multivariate Landscape Trajectory Analysis: An Example Using Simulation Modeling of American Marten Habitat Change Under Four Timber Harvest Scenarios.- Part 3: Temporally Focused Case Studies: Assessing Grouse Habitats in the Alps: the Complication of Small-Scale Spatio-Temporal Variation in Rainfall Patterns.- Exploring the Temporal Effects of Seasonal Water Availability on the Snail Kite of Florida.- Three Axes of Ecological Studies: Matching Process and Time in Landscape Ecology.- Building and Using Habitat Models For Assessing Temporal Changes in Forest Ecosystems.- Foraging Responses of the Endangered Gouldian Finch to Temporal Differences in Seed Availability in Northern Australian Savanna Grasslands.- Spending Time in the Forest: Responses of Cavity Nesters to Temporal Changes in Forest Health in Interior British Columbia.- Niche Opportunities and Introduced Birds: Temporal Variation in Resource Abundance.- About the Contributors.- Index.

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Biography

John A. Bissonette is a research scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, and is a professor in the College of Natural Resources at Utah State University. Ilse Storch is professor of wildlife ecology and management at the University of Freiburg, Germany.