Landscape Ecology

“Working on the final project was good practice on how to translate our knowledge of landscape ecology to a wider audience.”

Landscape Ecology is a language that informs our understanding of the world around us and helps us to engage in planning activities. By learning about the structure and function of places students tackle complex questions.

In this class we focused on understanding landscape ecology through both data analysis and real- world settings. Students were taught the fundamental building blocks needed to assess landscapes and statistically evaluate changes that are occurring.

To ground the theories of landscape ecology in real world settings, students designed and conducted team research projects. The students, through their work came to recognize the important lessons articulated in detail below that they will carry into their future efforts.

First – so much more information is needed to answer the complex challenges they hoped to tackle. One team, aiming to understand the impacts of the drying Great Salt Lake realized that tracking the drops of water was nearly impossible. The team thought it would be easier to show how the wind blows, but this too was more complicated than they originally imagined. Another team explored how trees behave in the fall seasons, looking to mimic studies of east coast trees in our Western landscape. They soon realized that we need better data on our local trees and are hoping to continue gathering this needed data. Despite the data limitations, both teams uncovered truths about our region and learned to put the concepts of landscape ecology into practice.

Second – scale is of critical importance. Lectures on this topic do not meaningfully drive home this lesson. Students looking to identify the best locations for stream restoration found that they could identify watersheds, but they could not get the scale of the stream. This finer scale analysis will need to wait for another semester. Another team of students found this same lesson when they looked to understand the potential for Logan to be become a bee city. Their project started at the scale of the valley and ended with site scale analysis. Linking these different scales helped them understand the importance of the topic.

Third – having solutions is not enough. Even when we know that bee boxes and planting multiple crop types on an agroecosystem are the best courses of action, we do not necessarily know where to use these steps. One team worked to identify the parcels in Weber County that would provide the greatest biodiversity benefits. They found general areas and this work will inform next steps in ongoing research.

The analytical approach brings together multiple perspectives and thus challenges the students to do excellent work. Students appreciate this challenge and enjoy the interdisciplnary nature of the course. For example, one student wrote “Working on the final project was good practice on how to translate our knowledge of landscape ecology to a wider audience.” The students collaborated across departments, pushed their own boundaries, and developed high quality finals posters.