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concepts: p.11 landscape is "a heterogeneous land area complsed of a cluster of interacting ecosystems that is repeated in similar form throughout... Landscape development ... results from three mechanisms operating within a landscape's boundary: specific geomorphological processes taking place over a long time, colonization patterns of organisms, and local disturbances of individual ecosystems over a shorter time." p.9 disturbance regimes include natural and human events. "Each ecosystem type has a distinctive disturbance regime, that is, the intensities, frequencies, and types of distrubances that occur in it." p. 24 each landscape element is either a patch, corridor, or background matrix. landscape structure is their spatial distribution. flows and interaction by ecological objects (plants, animals, nutrients) among landscape elements is landscape function. p.26 "Landscape heterogeneity decreases the abundance of rare interior species, increases the abundance of ege species and animals requiring two or more landscape elements, and enhances teh potential total species coexistence". "heterogeneity... is a fundamental cause of species movements and other flows".
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