Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Oklahoma, 1998. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 131-139).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rutgers University, 2007. / "Graduate Program in Ecology and Evolution." Includes bibliographical references (p. 137-157).

Landscape, language, man - a culturological study Abstract The first part of this study views some of the contributions involving landscape theme. One of them analysis water element in landscape as the symbol of the human imagination and unconsciousness. Symbols, meanings and their creating are the most important human ability; this is the typicall quality for the human kind. In opposition to culture and its network of meanings exist nature and wildness that represent primary world without artificial interferences. At the present time this primary world can be nearly experienced in forest, where no loud meanings and hypertrofic symbols disturb us. Thus forests have an important function for reanimating and purification of human culture. An interesting mention of forest aesthetics from foerster H. von Salisch shows how creative and beatiful can the forest managering or landscape managering be. Next part references to space and to relationship between a subject (man) and its space. In generally meaning we can use the term environment. Each man needs to identificate with his living environment and he also needs to understand its meaning. According to Martin Heidegger's phenomenological philosophy we use term habitation. Habitation means existence in human way - each man lives between sky and ground. Ancient...

Urbanisation is a key driver in the loss, fragmentation and modification of natural habitats resulting in the global loss of biodiversity. As the human population, and consequently the rate of urbanisation, continues to increase exponentially it is important to understand how to sustain and enhance biodiversity within the built environment. Cities comprise a complex assortment of habitat types yet relatively little is known of how its composition and spatial configuration can influence species presence or foraging activities. It is therefore necessary to examine habitat use and biodiversity patterns at multiple spatial scales to fully understand how species are responding to the urban matrix. There are few other orders of animals that are as strongly associated with people as bats (Chiroptera); for some bat species human habitations provide roosts and adaptations of the environment provide food sources. However bat species richness generally declines with increasing urbanisation indicating that many species are not able to persist in highly urbanised areas. In this thesis, I show that the behaviour, habitat preferences, and distribution of bats are strongly influenced by the built environment at both a local and landscape scale. Although many animal species are known to exhibit sex differences in habitat use, adaptability to the urban landscape is commonly examined at the species level without consideration of potential intraspecific differences. I found that female Pipistrellus pygmaeus show greater selectivity in foraging locations within urban woodland in comparison to males at both a local and landscape scale. There was a lower probability of finding females within woodlands which were poorly connected, highly cluttered, with a high edge: interior ratio and fewer mature trees. The results have important implications for our understanding of how to manage areas for breeding females and highlight the need to supplement acoustic monitoring with trapping data to assess sex differences in habitat use. Determining how morphological or behavioural traits can influence species adaptability to the built environment may enable us to improve the effectiveness of conservation efforts. The morphological similarities between P. pygmaeus and P. pipistrellus suggest that both species should respond similarly to the urban matrix, however I found differential habitat use occurring within a variety of urban habitats (e.g. woodland and waterways) and at a landscape scale. In urban woodland there was a higher probability of P. pygmaeus activity relative to P. pipistrellus in woodlands with low clutter and understory cover which were surrounded by low levels of built environment. Many bat species are strongly associated with aquatic or adjacent riparian habitats yet we know little about the utilisation of urban waterways by bats. After surveying urban waterways throughout the UK, I was able to show that the built environment can negatively affect a variety of bat species from the riparian zone up to 3km from a waterway. This indicates that beneficial urban waterway rehabilitation schemes for bats require management at multiple spatial scales, from retaining a vegetated riparian zone at the local scale to highlighting the necessity for conservation funding to be spent on the implementation of landscape scale environmental improvement schemes that encompass the entire urban matrix. Undertaking surveys to confirm species presence or to estimate population sizes can be difficult, particularly for elusive species such as bats. I was able to demonstrate a variety of ways to increase surveying efficiency (e.g. the use of an acoustic lure to increase bat-capture rate) and a significant relationship between bat activity and the relative abundance of certain species of bat which can maximise the knowledge of diversity in an area whilst minimising wildlife disturbances. Urbanisation has also had strong negative effects on many insect groups, such as moths, which are important components of the diets of many bat species. I found that woodland vegetation characteristics were more important than the surrounding landscapes in determining the abundance, species richness, and species diversity of moth assemblages within urban woodland. This indicates that management at a local scale to ensure provision of good quality habitat may be more beneficial for moth populations than improving habitat connectivity across the urban matrix. The findings presented in this thesis have important implications for our understanding of the adaptability of species to the built environment and for the management and monitoring of bat populations. It also highlights that even common bat species are negatively affected by urbanisation and much greater attention should be paid to securing their future within the urban landscape.

A arborização urbana é um tema bastante importante no contexto ecológico das cidades em virtude das múltiplas funções que equilibram as condições do ambiente. Essa pesquisa foi desenvolvida no bairro do Butantã, na área loteada pela Cia. City no início do século XX. Foi realizado o levantamento florístico das espécies arbóreas encontradas nas calçadas e canteiros centrais e, posteriormente, esses exemplares botânicos foram mapeados por meio do sistema de informações geográficas em escala de detalhe. / The urban arborization is a sufficiently important subject in the ecological context of the cities in virtue of the multiple functions that balance the conditions of the environment. This research was developed in the quarter of the Butantã, in the area divided land into parcels for the Cia. City at the beginning of century XX. The florístico survey of the found arbóreas species in the sidewalk was carried through and seedbeds botanical central offices and, later, these units had been mapeados by means of the system of geographic information in detail scale.

Thesis (Ph. D.)(Landscape Architecture)--University of Pretoria, 2002. / Bibliographical references included (p. 207-215).

This thesis considers the potential of the suburban periphery to become an ecologically, socially and culturally productive site which supports local and regional public programs. It explores ways of creating connectivity across the hard boundaries of a suburban development, an expressway and an agricultural area in order to stimulate biological and cultural diversity in this typically neglected, “leftover” environment. The site is the Ninth Line Corridor at the suburban edge of Mississauga, Ontario. The investigation of boundary occurs at the urban, building and experiential scales, and considers how the intersection of landscape, ecology, architecture and program can generate activities and events which foster engagement with the site and within a community.

A arborização urbana é um tema bastante importante no contexto ecológico das cidades em virtude das múltiplas funções que equilibram as condições do ambiente. Essa pesquisa foi desenvolvida no bairro do Butantã, na área loteada pela Cia. City no início do século XX. Foi realizado o levantamento florístico das espécies arbóreas encontradas nas calçadas e canteiros centrais e, posteriormente, esses exemplares botânicos foram mapeados por meio do sistema de informações geográficas em escala de detalhe. / The urban arborization is a sufficiently important subject in the ecological context of the cities in virtue of the multiple functions that balance the conditions of the environment. This research was developed in the quarter of the Butantã, in the area divided land into parcels for the Cia. City at the beginning of century XX. The florístico survey of the found arbóreas species in the sidewalk was carried through and seedbeds botanical central offices and, later, these units had been mapeados by means of the system of geographic information in detail scale.

Typescript. Includes vita and abstract. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 107-115). Also available online.

<div>Wetlands are dispersed fractal aquatic habitats that play a key role in watershed eco-hydrology. Wetlands provide critical habitats for specialized fauna and flora, process nutrients, and store water. Wetlands are found in a wide range of landscapes and climates, including humid/tropical regions where surface water is abundant, and in semiarid/arid regions with surface-water deficits. Wetland morphology and hydrology are governed by geomorphology and climate. Wetlands are dynamic; they change in space and time in response to unsteady external conditions, and over longer term to internal process feedbacks. Together, wetlands form a mosaic of heterogeneous, dynamic, aquatic habitats in varying spatial organizations, networked by hydrological and ecological connections. </div><div><br></div><div>The overarching goal of the proposed research is to provide a robust theoretical framework to model the dynamics of multiple wetlands spread across watersheds (wetlandscape). In particular, the three main lens I used for identifying the spatiotemporal variability in wetlandscapes were: hydrology, morphology and ecology. Indeed, the hydrological modeling of wetlands is of key importance to determine which habitats are potentially able to host aquatic and semiaquatic species, as well as function as retention basin for storing considerable amount of water or for processing nutrients. Wetlands interaction with the landscape topography is essential to characterize the morphological attributes of these waterbodies. Different generating mechanisms have produced differences in wetland shapes and extent. However, even if wetlands are different among regions, and also within the same landscape, the set of function that they can support is similar. In the present research, I have also proposed that because water accumulates at low elevations, topography-based models helpful for the identification of wetlands in landscapes. These types of models are useful especially in those cases were wetlands data are sparse or not available. The proposed approaches could reproduce the abundance and distribution of active wetlands found in the NWI database, despite the differences in identification methods. In particular, I found that wetland size distributions in all the conterminous United States share the same Pareto pdf. Furthermore, the wetland shape is constrained into a narrow range of 2D fractal dimension (1.33;1.5). Since this method can be carried out with only a DEM as input, the proposed framework can be applied to any DEM to extract the location and the extent of depressional wetlands.</div><div><br></div><div>Wetlands are among the most biologically diverse ecosystems, serving as habitats to a wide range of unique plants and animal life. In fact, wetlands and their surrounding terrestrial habitats are critical for the conservation and management of aquatic and semi-aquatic species. Understating the degree and dynamics of connectedness among individual wetlands is a challenge that unites the fields of ecology and hydrology. Connectivity among spatially distributed mosaic of wetlands, embedded in uplands, is critical for aquatic habitat integrity and to maintain metapopulation biodiversity. Land-use and climate change, among other factors, contribute to wetland habitat loss and fragmentation of dispersal networks. Here, I present an approach for modeling dynamic spatiotemporal changes, driven by stochastic hydroclimatic forcing, in topology of dispersal networks formed by connecting habitat zones within wetlands. I examined changes in topology of dispersal networks resulting from temporal fluctuations in hydroclimatic forcing, finding that optimal dispersal network are available only for limited time period, thus species need to constantly adapt to cope with adverse conditions. </div><div><br></div><div>Loss of wetlands leads to habitat fragmentation and decrease in landscape connectivity, which in turn hampers the dispersal and survival of wetland-dependent species. Ecosystem functions arise from interdependent processes and feedbacks operating concurrently at multiple scales. In this thesis, I integrated stochastic models for landscape hydrology to study the temporal variability in wetlands attributes (e.g., stage, surface area and storage volume, carrying capacity) with ecological network theory allows for characterization of the spatiotemporal dynamics of habitat distribution and connectivity that is essential to meta-communities. The proposed framework can be applied in diverse landscapes and hydro-climates, and could thus be used at larger scales. The proposed approach could also inform conservation and restoration efforts that target landscape functions linked to transport in wet ecological corridors. The interdisciplinarity that characterizes this work allows for a wide spectrum of potential applications. Despite the ultimate goal of the thesis consists in the eco-hydrologic modeling of wetlandscapes, the backbone of the proposed models could be extended to any kind of patchily habitat driven by stochastic forcing. </div>