Land Mosaics: The Ecology of Landscapes and Regions

Richard T.T. Forman, Cambridge University Press, The Pitt Building, Trumpington Street, Cambridge, UK, CB2 IRP. 1995. 632 p. ISBN 0-521-47462-0.

Land resource exploitation becomes more and more intensive with the world population increasing rapidly. Today, less than 10% of the land surface remains in a mostly unchanged state, and only 4% has been set aside in natural reserves. Ecologists increasingly recognize that they must extend their science to embrace artificial environments and to develop these ideas into the discipline of landscape ecology. The book Land Mosaics: The Ecology of Landscapes and Regions is a new publication in this field. The author of the book is a notable landscape ecologist.

Mosaic patterns are found at all spacial scales. Land mosaics, however, are often measured at the scale of hundreds, even thousands, of kilometers. Thus, landscapes, regions, and continents are three scales of land mosaics. The mosaic pattern in the central feature of land and the ecological structure, function, and change of the mosaic is the central paradigm of the book.

The book is organized into...