Special Sessions

1. Applying landscape ecology in forests of the northern Great Lakes region
Session Chair: Sari Saunders
Wednesday, 31 March 2004, 1 PM - 5 PM

The Great Lakes Region has been a focal area for landscape ecological research during the past decade. Landscape ecologists have studied the patterns of ecological processes, such as carbon flux, decomposition, and natural disturbance regimes; and compositional or structural features, such as the diversity of fauna and flora. The interrelationships among these variables have been examined within focal ecosystems at the landscape level and over the mosaic of multiple ecosystems at a regional level. Both retrospective work and predictive modeling of management impacts have been undertaken on a variety of landscape ecosystems. In our symposium, we anticipate synthesizing the major discoveries of several active research groups to assess how this research (1) enhances understanding of the functioning of managed landscapes; and (2) guides management and policy actions that strive to meet multiple goals for restoration, conservation, recreation, and resource extraction. The symposium will highlight both the limitations and successes of this research to knowledge and management of these intensely modified landscapes. We hope that lessons learned from these groups will also be explored by the general landscape ecology community to promote the development of the science and its applications.

2. Scaling laws in fire regimes: moving landscape fire history into the 21st century
Session Chairs: Carol Miller and Don McKenzie
Thursday, 1 April 2003 8:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Fire regimes are commonly characterized by frequency, or fire return interval, severity, and typical fire size. These fire statistics are highly dependent, however, on the spatial and temporal scale and extent of data collection and analysis. These scale dependencies are often ignored or over-simplified when using fire statistics to guide ecosystem restoration and management. Correct parameterization of landscape fire models and interpretation of model results depend on an explicit understanding of scaling relationships. It is time to move fire history studies into a landscape framework that explicitly accounts for the scale-dependence in fire-regimes. In this special session we will examine how spatial and temporal patterns in landscape fire regimes change across scales, under a transdisciplinary framework that includes perspectives from stochastic theory, physics, physical geography and terrain analysis, climatology, paleoecology, and social science. We address the following specific topics: 1) the event-area relationship, 2) neutral landscape models, 3) scale dependence in past and present landscape fire regimes, 4) climatic and topographic constraints on landscape fire regimes at multiple scales, and 5) integration of land-use, vegetation, and fire regimes across scales.

3. Technology Transfer and Extension in Forest Landscape Ecology: What, to Whom and How?
Session Chair: Ajith Perera
Thursday, 1 April 2003 8:00 AM - 12:00 PM

http://www.scp-solutions.com/temp/presentation.html

Forest landscape ecology has evolved and matured to a point where we can begin to confidently transfer some science and tools for forest policy makers and practitioners. A substantial body of information, knowledge,and technology has accumulated during the last 10-15 years. Some forest/land management agencies, forest companies, and NGOs have recognized the importance of landscape ecology, and are making efforts to incorporate principles of LE and tools in to their management planning. However, they face many obstacles in this task.

Technology transfer and extension is a relatively alien topic to forest landscape ecologists, and there has been very little dialogue on This topic among landscape ecology professional meetings.

Given this background, our goals in holding this symposium are:

1. To consider the aspects of technology transfer and extension in general, and critically examine the aspects unique to forest landscape ecology (which makes it a difficult sell to practitioners)
2. To point out the value of technology transfer to researchers in forest landscape ecology
3. To institute technology transfer as a topical focus at landscape ecology meetings

4. Marine and Coastal Applications in Landscape Ecology
Session Chairs: Matt Nicholson, Elizabeth Hinchey and Brad Robbins
Friday, 2 April 2004, 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM

Although applications in landscape ecology traditionally have been restricted to the study of terrestrial systems, the questions defining the science are equally relevant for marine systems. Indeed, knowledge of spatial pattern and the scales at which ecological processes take place is essential for effective management of marine environments. However, scattered and widely disparate field or ship-based observations historically precluded quantification of large-scale marine patterns. Recent advances in remote sensing and other technologies are permitting assessments of pattern and process that never before were possible. It is still unclear how the principles of landscape ecology can be translated into the marine environment, a three-dimensional milieu with physical and biological characteristics that often vary rapidly in space and time. This session will bring together researchers who are attempting to adapt the tools of landscape ecology to address ecological questions within marine and coastal systems. The unique challenges facing the growing field of “seascape” ecology will be addressed.

5. An Approach for Determining Regional Land Cover and Species Habitat Conservation Status in American Southwest: the Southwest Regional Gap Analysis Project
Session Chairs: William Kepner, Doug Ramsey, and Julie Prior-Magee
Wednesday, March 31, 2004 10:00 AM - 5:00 PM

http://www.epa.gov/nerlesd1/land-sci/pdf/gap_usiale04.pdf

The Gap Analysis Program (GAP) is a national interagency program that maps the distribution of plant communities and selected animal species and compares these distributions with land stewardship to identify biotic elements at potential risk of endangerment. GAP uses Geographic Information System (GIS) technology to assemble and view large amounts of biological and land management data to identify areas (gaps) where conservation efforts may not be sufficient to maintain diversity of living natural resources. Historically, GAP has been conducted by individual states, however this has resulted in inconsistencies in mapped distributions of vegetation types and animal habitat across state lines because of differences in mapping and modeling protocols. This was further compounded from the lack of a national vegetation classification nomenclature. In response to these limitations, GAP embarked on a second-generation effort to conduct the program at a regional scale, using a vegetation classification scheme applicable across the US, and ecoregional units as the basis for segmenting the landscape into manageable units. The program’s first formalized multi-state regional effort includes the five states (Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Utah) comprising the Southwest Regional GAP Analysis Project (SW ReGAP). A special session is proposed for the US-IALE 2004 Symposium in Las Vegas, NV. In this session, scientists (ecologists, remote sensing, wildlife biologists, etc.) and land managers will demonstrate the transdisciplinary challenge of developing a contemporary regional dataset and providing analysis for an area that is nearly 20 percent of the contiguous United States. Scientists and managers from the 5 principal investigator states will provide results in regard to land cover mapping, national vegetation classification, Classification and Regression Tree analysis, accuracy assessment, land ownership mapping, vertebrate modeling and habitat mapping (~836 species), database development, and analysis for gaps in species protection.

6. Landscape ecological modeling and ecological risk assessment: at the cross roads
Session Chairs: Marlene Cole, Alan Johnson and Igor Linkov
Wednesday, March 31, 2004 1:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Landscape ecological modeling and ecological risk assessment are often used to support environmental decision making. While each operates within its own set of methods and tools, decision-making may benefit from the fusion of the two disciplines. This session will bring together researchers involved in landscape ecological analyses and spatially explicit ecological risk assessments. Ecological risk assessment, which has much regulatory utilization and guidance, provides a systematic approach to predict the likelihood of undesired effects arising from environmental stressors. Stressors may include chemical contaminants or other ecological disturbances (land use changes, altered hydrology, invasive species, genetically modified organisms, climate change, etc.). Landscape-level approaches could benefit ecological risk assessment in a number of ways, including: (1) explicit consideration of scale and spatial organization during problem formation, (2) accounting for spatial heterogeneity in exposure characterization, (3) extrapolation from small-scale studies to broad-scale effects, (4) selection of appropriate assessment and measurement endpoints, (5) spatial analysis of uncertainties, and (6) the use of maps or other spatial visualization techniques for risk communication. In turn, ecological risk assessment can benefit landscape ecology because: (1) it has an existing regulatory presence (and is often required), (2) its framework lends itself to addressing environmental questions, and (3) it provides direct application to environmental decision making.

7. Multiple Scales for Sustainable results
Session Chairs: Betsy Smith and Megan Mehaffey
Friday, April 2, 2004 9:00 AM - 3:00 PM

This session will highlight recent research that incorporates the use of multiple scales and innovative environmental accounting to better inform decisions that affect sustainability, resilience, and vulnerability at all scales. Effective decision-making involves assessment at multiple scales and quantification of the full range of environmental costs and benefits associated with multiple decision criteria. Work on a Regional scale contributes to local decision-making by extending the horizon such that environmental stresses that progress across the landscape (e.g. land use change, atmospheric deposition, spread of non-indigenous species) can be evaluated within the context of current and future cumulative stresses. Similarly, small localized actions add up to regional impacts (e.g. permitting of small point sources of atmospheric pollutants, linking of green space to provide habitat for migratory species) and are therefore important for maximizing opportunities and heading off actions having only short-term benefits.

8. Landscape Ecology at the US EPA: methodologies and applications
Session Chair: Luis E. Fernandez
Friday, April 2, 2004 9:00 AM -1:20 PM

The mission of the US Environmental Protection Agency includes the protection of ecosystems and human populations at regional scales. Key principles of landscape ecology have proven to be crucial for the development of new methodologies which shift from a traditional site-specific focus to a regional and landscape scale for environmental protection. This session will present work being done by EPA scientists who have incorporate these key principles into programs of investigation and action designed to protect the natural and human environment.

9. Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary approaches for creating and maintaining sustainable landscapes
Session Chairs : Jianguo (Jingle) Wu, Bärbel Tress, Gunther Tress and Gary Fry
Thursday, April 1, 2004 8:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Understanding the dynamic interactions between society and nature is at the heart of the emerging field - sustainability science whose ultimate goal is to promote sustainable landscapes. The number of large landscape projects that include elements of integration between disciplines has been steadily growing since the mid 1990s. The challenges facing researchers working on such landscape projects include selecting and developing appropriate methodological approaches for addressing their specific research questions and integrating disciplinary knowledge to solve complex environmental problems. Integrative research teams face problems of communicating across disciplinary boundaries and thus have difficulties identifying project goals and the methodologies needed to reach these goals. The background for these difficulties is often related to differences in epistemology of different knowledge cultures. There might be fundamental differences in the perception of what research is, what is regarded as data, reliable methods, and research outputs. If landscape ecology is to contribute to the management of sustainable landscapes, it should increase its body of knowledge towards developing concepts and methods that can be used by integrative research teams. These concepts and methods need to be appealing and acceptable to researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds and seen as relevant to sustainability science. This special session will offer a unique opportunity for researchers to discuss such conceptual and progmatic issues. The special session will include contributions that existing and emerging landscape ecology concepts and methodologies (e.g. sustainability science, ecological networks, cultural landscapes, landscape scenarios, habitat supplementation and complementation, landscape continuity, heterogeneity, scale effects, dispersion) and contribute to the development of a science of sustainable landscapes.