Description:    The detection of climate-driven changes in coupled human-natural systems has become a focus of climate research and adaptation efforts around the world. High-resolution gridded historical climate (GHC) products enable analysis of recent climatic changes at the local/regional scales most relevant for research and decision-making, but these fine-scale climate datasets have several caveats. We analyzed two 4 km GHC products to produce high-resolution temperature trend maps for the US Northeast from 1980 to 2009, and compared outputs between products and with an independent climate record. The two products had similar spatial climatologies for mean temperatures, agreed on temporal variability in regionally averaged trends, and agreed that warming has been greater for minimum versus maximum temperatures. Trend maps were highly heterogeneous, i.e., a patchy landscape of warming, cooling and stability that varied by month, but with local-scale anomalies persistent across months (e.g., cooling ‘pockets’ within warming zones). In comparing trend maps between GHC products, we found large local-scale disparities at high elevations and along coastlines; and where weather stations were sparse, a single-station disparity in input data resulted in a large zone of trend map disagreement between products. Preliminary cross-validation with an independent climate record indicated substantial and complex errors for both products. Our analysis provided novel landscape-scale insights on climate change in the US Northeast, but raised questions about scale and sources of uncertainty in high-resolution GHC products and differences among the many products available. Given rapid growth in their use, we recommend exercising caution in the analysis and interpretation of high-resolution climate maps. Content Type Journal Article Category Research Article Pages 1-16 DOI 10.1007/s10980-011-9698-8 Authors Colin M. Beier, Department of Forest and Natural Resources Management, Adirondack Ecological Center, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, State University of New York, 1 Forestry Drive, Syracuse, NY 13210, USA Stephen A. Signell, Adirondack Ecological Center, College of Environmental Science and Forestry, State University of New York, 6276 State Route 28N, Newcomb, NY, USA Aaron Luttman, Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, Clarkson University, Potsdam, NY, USA Arthur T. DeGaetano, NOAA Northeast Regional Climate Center, Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA Journal Landscape Ecology Online ISSN 1572-9761 Print ISSN 0921-2973

Description:    Flux tower networks (e.g., AmeriFlux, Agriflux) provide continuous observations of ecosystem exchanges of carbon (e.g., net ecosystem exchange), water vapor (e.g., evapotranspiration), and energy between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere. The long-term time series of flux tower data are essential for studying and understanding terrestrial carbon cycles, ecosystem services, and climate changes. Currently, there are 13 flux towers located within the Great Plains (GP). The towers are sparsely distributed and do not adequately represent the varieties of vegetation cover types, climate conditions, and geophysical and biophysical conditions in the GP. This study assessed how well the available flux towers represent the environmental conditions or “ecological envelopes” across the GP and identified optimal locations for future flux towers in the GP. Regression-based remote sensing and weather-driven net ecosystem production (NEP) models derived from different extrapolation ranges (10 and 50%) were used to identify areas where ecological conditions were poorly represented by the flux tower sites and years previously used for mapping grassland fluxes. The optimal lands suitable for future flux towers within the GP were mapped. Results from this study provide information to optimize the usefulness of future flux towers in the GP and serve as a proxy for the uncertainty of the NEP map. Content Type Journal Article Category Report Pages 1-8 DOI 10.1007/s10980-011-9699-7 Authors Yingxin Gu, ASRC Research & Technology Solutions, Contractor to US Geological Survey (USGS) Earth Resources Observation and Science (EROS) Center, 47914 252nd Street, Sioux Falls, SD 57198, USA Daniel M. Howard, Stinger Ghaffarian Technologies, Inc., Contractor to USGS EROS, Sioux Falls, SD 57198, USA Bruce K. Wylie, USGS EROS, Sioux Falls, SD 57198, USA Li Zhang, Key Laboratory of Digital Earth, Center for Earth Observation and Digital Earth, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China Journal Landscape Ecology Online ISSN 1572-9761 Print ISSN 0921-2973

Description:    The manner by which pollinators move across a landscape and their resulting preferences and/or avoidances of travel through particular habitat types can have a significant impact on plant population genetic structure and population-level connectivity. We examined the spatial genetic structure of the understory tree Cornus florida (Cornaceae) adults ( N Adults  = 452) and offspring ( N Offspring  = 736) across two mating events to determine the extent to which pollen pool genetic covariance is influenced by intervening forest architecture. Resident adults showed no spatial partitioning but genotypes were positively autocorrelated up to a distance of 35 m suggesting a pattern of restricted seed dispersal. In the offspring, selfing rates were small (s m  = 0.035) whereas both biparental inbreeding ( s b; open canopy  = 0.16, s b; closed canopy  = 0.11) and correlated paternity ( r p; open canopy  = 0.21, r p; closed canopy  = 0.07) were significantly influenced by primary canopy opening above individual mothers. The spatial distribution of genetic covariance in pollen pool composition was quantified for each reproductive event using Pollination Graphs, a network method based upon multivariate conditional genetic covariance. The georeferenced graph topology revealed a significant positive relationship between genetic covariance and pollinator movement through C. florida canopies, a negative relationship with open primary canopy (e.g., roads under open canopies and fields with no primary canopy), and no relationship with either conifer or mixed hardwood canopy species cover. These results suggest that both resident genetic structure within stands and genetic connectivity between sites in C. florida populations are influenced by spatial heterogeneity of mating individuals and quality of intervening canopy cover. Content Type Journal Article Category Research Article Pages 1-13 DOI 10.1007/s10980-011-9696-x Authors Rodney J. Dyer, Department of Biology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23284, USA David M. Chan, Department of Mathematics, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23284, USA Vicki A. Gardiakos, Department of Biology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23284, USA Crystal A. Meadows, Department of Biology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23284, USA Journal Landscape Ecology Online ISSN 1572-9761 Print ISSN 0921-2973

Description:    Little is known about how variation in landscape mosaics affects genetic differentiation. The goal of this paper is to quantify the relative importance of habitat area and configuration, as well as the contrast in resistance between habitat and non-habitat, on genetic differentiation. We hypothesized that habitat configuration would be more influential than habitat area in influencing genetic differentiation. Population size is positively related to habitat area, and therefore habitat area should affect genetic drift, but not gene flow. In contrast, differential rates and patterns of gene flow across a landscape should be related to habitat configuration. Using spatially explicit, individual-based simulation modeling, we found that habitat configuration had stronger relationships with genetic differentiation than did habitat area, but there was a high degree of confounding between the effects of habitat area and configuration. We evaluated the predictive ability of six widely used landscape metrics and found that patch cohesion and correlation length of habitat are among the strongest individual predictors of genetic differentiation. Correlation length, patch density and clumpy are the most parsimonious set of variables to predict the magnitude of genetic differentiation in complex landscapes. Content Type Journal Article Category Research Article Pages 1-12 DOI 10.1007/s10980-011-9693-0 Authors Samuel A. Cushman, U.S. Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, 2500 S. Pine Knoll Drive, Flagstaff, AZ 86001, USA Andrew Shirk, JISAO Climate Impacts Group, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA Erin L. Landguth, Division of Biological Sciences, University of Montana, Missoula, MT, USA Journal Landscape Ecology Online ISSN 1572-9761 Print ISSN 0921-2973

Description:    Mediterranean landscapes are suffering two opposing forces leading to large-scale changes in species distribution: land abandonment of less productive areas and an increase in wildfire impact. Here, we test the hypothesis that fires occurred in recent decades drive the pattern of expansion of early-successional, open-habitat bird species by aiding in the process of colonisation of newly burnt areas. The study was carried out in Catalonia (NE Spain). We selected 44 burnt sites occurring between 2000 and 2005 to model colonisation patterns under different assumptions of potential colonisers’ sources and evaluated the colonisation estimates with empirical data on six bird species especially collected for this purpose. We first defined three landscape scenarios serving as surrogates of potential colonisers’ sources: open-habitats created by fire, shrublands and farmlands. Then, we used a parameter derived from a functional connectivity metric to estimate species colonization dynamics on the selected sites by each particular scenario. Finally, we evaluated our colonisation estimates with the species occurrence in the studied locations by using generalized linear mixed models. The occurrence of the focal species on the newly burnt sites was significantly related to the connectivity patterns described by both the recent fire history and the other open-habitat types generated by a different type of disturbance. We suggest that land use changes in recent decades have produced a shift in the relative importance of habitats acting as reservoirs for open-habitat bird species dynamics in Mediterranean areas. Before the middle of the twentieth century species’ reservoirs were probably constituted by relatively static open habitats (grassland and farmland), whereas afterwards they likely consist of a shifting mosaic of habitat patches where fire plays a key role as connectivity provider and largely contributes to the maintenance of species persistence. Content Type Journal Article Category Research Article Pages 1-14 DOI 10.1007/s10980-011-9695-y Authors Elena L. Zozaya, Centre Tecnològic Forestal de Catalunya, Ctra. de St. Llorenç de Morunys a Port del Comte km 2, 25280 Solsona, Spain Lluís Brotons, Centre Tecnològic Forestal de Catalunya, Ctra. de St. Llorenç de Morunys a Port del Comte km 2, 25280 Solsona, Spain Santiago Saura, Centre Tecnològic Forestal de Catalunya, Ctra. de St. Llorenç de Morunys a Port del Comte km 2, 25280 Solsona, Spain Journal Landscape Ecology Online ISSN 1572-9761 Print ISSN 0921-2973

Description:    Landscape spatial organization (LSO) strongly impacts many environmental issues. Modelling agricultural landscapes and describing meaningful landscape patterns are thus regarded as key-issues for designing sustainable landscapes. Agricultural landscapes are mostly designed by farmers. Their decisions dealing with crop choices and crop allocation to land can be generic and result in landscape regularities, which determine LSO. This paper comes within the emerging discipline called “landscape agronomy”, aiming at studying the organization of farming practices at the landscape scale. We here aim at articulating the farm and the landscape scales for landscape modelling. To do so, we develop an original approach consisting in the combination of two methods used separately so far: the identification of explicit farmer decision rules through on-farm surveys methods and the identification of landscape stochastic regularities through data-mining. We applied this approach to the Niort plain landscape in France. Results show that generic farmer decision rules dealing with sunflower or maize area and location within landscapes are consistent with spatiotemporal regularities identified at the landscape scale. It results in a segmentation of the landscape, based on both its spatial and temporal organization and partly explained by generic farmer decision rules. This consistency between results points out that the two modelling methods aid one another for land-use modelling at landscape scale and for understanding the driving forces of its spatial organization. Despite some remaining challenges, our study in landscape agronomy accounts for both spatial and temporal dimensions of crop allocation: it allows the drawing of new spatial patterns coherent with land-use dynamics at the landscape scale, which improves the links to the scale of ecological processes and therefore contributes to landscape ecology. Content Type Journal Article Category Research Article Pages 1-14 DOI 10.1007/s10980-011-9691-2 Authors Noémie Schaller, AgroParisTech, INRA, UMR 1048 SAD-APT, Bâtiment EGER, BP 01, 78 850 Thiverval-Grignon, France El Ghali Lazrak, INRA, UR 055 SAD ASTER, 88500 Mirecourt, France Philippe Martin, AgroParisTech, INRA, UMR 1048 SAD-APT, Bâtiment EGER, BP 01, 78 850 Thiverval-Grignon, France Jean-François Mari, LORIA, UMR CNRS 7503 INRIA-Grand-Est, B.P. 239, 54506 Vandœuvre-lès-Nancy, France Christine Aubry, AgroParisTech, INRA, UMR 1048 SAD-APT, Bâtiment EGER, BP 01, 78 850 Thiverval-Grignon, France Marc Benoît, INRA, UR 055 SAD ASTER, 88500 Mirecourt, France Journal Landscape Ecology Online ISSN 1572-9761 Print ISSN 0921-2973

Description: Agriculture, biodiversity, and markets: livelihoods and agroecology in comparative perspective Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 1-3 DOI 10.1007/s10980-011-9690-3 Authors Denise A. Piechnik, Penn State University, University Park, PA, USA Journal Landscape Ecology Online ISSN 1572-9761 Print ISSN 0921-2973

Description:    Unlike rare or specialised species, widespread abundant species have often been neglected when studying effects of habitat fragmentation. However, recently, it was shown that in the widespread abundant bush cricket Pholidoptera griseoaptera gene flow becomes restricted when the share of suitable habitat dropped below a threshold of 20% at the landscape scale. Here, using the same highly fragmented landscape, we studied the impact of habitat configuration and matrix quality on genetic variation and population differentiation of P.   griseoaptera at a small spatial scale. We investigated four clusters of three populations that were either disconnected or connected and had either low quality (arable land) or high quality (grassland) matrix. The number of alleles was significantly lower in disconnected than in connected clusters, irrespective of matrix quality. Genetic differentiation was equally high in the two disconnected clusters and in the connected cluster with low quality matrix ( G ST  ≥ 0.030; D  ≥ 0.082), whereas it was significantly reduced when connected habitats were embedded in a high quality grassland matrix ( G ST  = 0.004; D  = 0.011). Analyses of least-cost paths showed that grassy landscape elements in fact represent high quality matrix, but that linear grassy margins are costly for dispersal. The effect of habitat configuration on genetic diversity may be explained by lower effective population sizes in disconnected habitats. The fact that only the connected populations in high quality matrix were not differentiated indicates that landscape management should simultaneously consider habitat configuration and matrix quality to effectively promote small and dispersal-limited species, also at small spatial scales. Content Type Journal Article Category Research Article Pages 1-12 DOI 10.1007/s10980-011-9692-1 Authors Rebecca Lange, IFZ-Department of Animal Ecology, Justus-Liebig-University, Heinrich-Buff-Ring 26-32, 35392 Giessen, Germany Tim Diekötter, IFZ-Department of Animal Ecology, Justus-Liebig-University, Heinrich-Buff-Ring 26-32, 35392 Giessen, Germany Lisa A. Schiffmann, IFZ-Department of Animal Ecology, Justus-Liebig-University, Heinrich-Buff-Ring 26-32, 35392 Giessen, Germany Volkmar Wolters, IFZ-Department of Animal Ecology, Justus-Liebig-University, Heinrich-Buff-Ring 26-32, 35392 Giessen, Germany Walter Durka, Department of Community Ecology, UFZ-Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Theodor-Lieser-Strasse 4, 06120 Halle, Germany Journal Landscape Ecology Online ISSN 1572-9761 Print ISSN 0921-2973

Description:    Coastal vegetation of South Florida typically comprises salinity-tolerant mangroves bordering salinity-intolerant hardwood hammocks and fresh water marshes. Two primary ecological factors appear to influence the maintenance of mangrove/hammock ecotones against changes that might occur due to disturbances. One of these is a gradient in one or more environmental factors. The other is the action of positive feedback mechanisms, in which each vegetation community influences its local environment to favor itself, reinforcing the boundary between communities. The relative contributions of these two factors, however, can be hard to discern. A spatially explicit individual-based model of vegetation, coupled with a model of soil hydrology and salinity dynamics is presented here to simulate mangrove/hammock ecotones in the coastal margin habitats of South Florida. The model simulation results indicate that an environmental gradient of salinity, caused by tidal flux, is the key factor separating vegetation communities, while positive feedback involving the different interaction of each vegetation type with the vadose zone salinity increases the sharpness of boundaries, and maintains the ecological resilience of mangrove/hammock ecotones against small disturbances. Investigation of effects of precipitation on positive feedback indicates that the dry season, with its low precipitation, is the period of strongest positive feedback. Content Type Journal Article Category Research Article Pages 1-11 DOI 10.1007/s10980-011-9689-9 Authors Jiang Jiang, Department of Biology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33124, USA Donald L. DeAngelis, Department of Biology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL 33124, USA Thomas J. Smith, U. S. Geological Survey, Southeast Ecological Science Center, 600 Fourth Street South, St. Petersburg, FL 33701, USA Su Yean Teh, School of Mathematical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 Minden, Penang, Malaysia Hock-Lye Koh, Disaster Research Nexus, School of Civil Engineering, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Engineering Campus, 14300 Nibong Tebal, Penang, Malaysia Journal Landscape Ecology Online ISSN 1572-9761 Print ISSN 0921-2973

Description:    Interest in protecting ecological areas is increasing because of land uses conflicts and environmental pressures. The optimal zoning of protected ecological areas belongs to a NP-hard problem because it is subject to both box and spatial constraints. A challenge in solving area optimization problems emerges with the increasing size of a study region. In this article, an integrated approach of remote sensing, GIS and modified ant colony optimization (ACO) is proposed for application in zoning protected ecological areas. Significant modifications have been made in the conventional ACO so that it can be further extended to solve zoning problems in large regions. An improved selection strategy is designed to accelerate the progress of sites selection for artificial ants. Another important modification in ACO is to incorporate the neighborhood diffusion strategy into pheromone updating. The optimal objective is to generate protected areas that maximize both ecological suitability and spatial compactness. The modified ACO model has been successfully applied to a case study involving an area of 25,483 cells in Dongguan, Guangdong, China. The experiments have demonstrated that the proposed model is an efficient and effective optimization technique for generating optimal protection. The modified ACO model only requires approximately 119 s for determining near-optimal solutions. Furthermore, the proposed method performs better than other methods, including simulated annealing, genetic algorithm, iterative relaxation, basic ACO, and density slicing. Content Type Journal Article Category Research Article Pages 1-17 DOI 10.1007/s10980-011-9684-1 Authors Xiaoping Liu, School of Geography and Planning, and Guangdong Key Laboratory for Urbanization and Geo-simulation, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275 People’s Republic of China Chunhua Lao, School of Geography and Planning, and Guangdong Key Laboratory for Urbanization and Geo-simulation, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275 People’s Republic of China Xia Li, School of Geography and Planning, and Guangdong Key Laboratory for Urbanization and Geo-simulation, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275 People’s Republic of China Yilun Liu, School of Geography and Planning, and Guangdong Key Laboratory for Urbanization and Geo-simulation, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275 People’s Republic of China Yimin Chen, School of Geography and Planning, and Guangdong Key Laboratory for Urbanization and Geo-simulation, Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou, 510275 People’s Republic of China Journal Landscape Ecology Online ISSN 1572-9761 Print ISSN 0921-2973