EKO/KEEK Landscape Ecology
Lecturer: Tomáš Václavík
Lecture: 2 hours/week + 1 hour/week
Credits: 4
Winter semester
Form of course completion: credit course, exam
Lecture topics:
- Landscape ecology as a scientific discipline – definition and principles, history, main focus, relationship to other disciplines
- Landscape and its dimensions – landscape heterogeneity, concept of scale, hierarchy of landscape components
- Causes of landscape pattern – abiotic factor, biotic factors, anthropogenic changes (land use/land cover change)
- Data and technologies in landscape ecology (GIS and remote sensing)
- Quantification of landscape pattern – landscape models, patch-corridor-matrix concept, landscape metrics
- Landscape dynamics – disturbances and disturbance regimes, landscape stability, pattern-process relationship, landscape fragmentation
- Organisms in landscapes – effects of landscape structure on organisms, island biogeography, metapopulation theory, landscape connectivity, habitat suitability models, species distribution models
- Landscape ecology in practice – general principles of landscape protection, landscape protection in Czech and European nature conservation practice (protected areas, NATURA 2000, systems of ecological stability), landscape character and its evaluation, landscape planning
- Ecosystem services – basic concept, assessment methods, ES indicators, scenario analysis
Laboratory exercises:
- Quantification of landscape pattern, understanding landscape metrics
- Habitat suitability modeling and identification of migration corridors
