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Landscape ecology deals with the effects of the spatial configuration of mosaics on a wide variety of ecological phenomena. Because problems in many areas of conservation biology and resource management are related to landscape use, development of a rigorous theoretical and empirical foundation for landscape ecology is essential. We present an approach to research that focuses on how individual-level mechanisms operating in a heterogeneous mosaic produce ecological patterns that are spatially dependent. The theoretical framework that we develop considers the density and distribution of a population among patches as a function of (a) within-patch movement patterns of individuals; (b) emigration from patches as a function of population density, patch configuration, patch context, and within-patch movement; and (c) loss of individuals as they disperse through landscape elements
Wiens et al. (Thu,) studied this question.