Collectively, answers to these questions should provide significant insight into transport and retention of nitrogen, and utility in developing management strategies to cope with growing issues of nutrient excess in Midwestern streams and rivers. The development of landscape ecology as a discipline has heightened our awareness of the effects of heterogeneity and scale on ecological systems and their dynamics. Heterogeneity means that not all places are the same. As a consequence, where individuals are located may have important effects on their activities, reproduction, and survival, and therefore on population, community, and ecosystem patterns and processes. Scale means that what we see at a particular scale cannot necessarily be extended to other scales.
Ecological phenomena are scale-dependent, in complex ways.
I will use examples from our studies of beetle movements, ant communities, and migratory shorebirds to explore several aspects of heterogeneity and scaling effects. I will conclude that together these two issues should set the agenda for ecology and landscape ecology for the next decade. Program for the Fall 1999 Symposium . Return to the MEG Homepage . Return to the IES Homepage .