Book review

In the first half of the twentieth century, ecology was featured with many different views such as Tansley’s ecosystem concept from Great Britain, Sukatchev’s geo-botany from Russia, Braun-Blanquet’s sociocommunity view from France and Switzerland, and Clements’ succession theory along with Gleason’s individualism from North America. It is these diverse views of nature that cleared much of the confusion in ecology, and to allow it to mature into a recognized scientific discipline. In the past 30 years, the field of landscape ecology seems to be following a similar pattern, starting with pattern reorganization and quantification of heterogeneous land surfaces (i.e., landscapes) and evolving to include ecological and physical processes, social influences (e.g., the relationship between humans and their surrounding landscapes), natural resource management, applications of advanced technology (e.g., remote sensing, GIS, spatial statistics, and information technology), and the policy-making process. One obvious piece of evidence is the emergence of an increasing number of publications under the umbrella of landscape ecology. The ‘‘Landscape Series’’, supported by Springer and edited by Drs. H. Décamps, B. Tress and G. Tress, for example, has put out eight volumes since 2003. These unique views, just like those views 50+ years ago in ecology, will help to advance landscape ecology to its maturity. This book, coordinated by Kienast and colleagues, is the most recent volume of this series that provides the scientific community with some eyeopening material by including the importance of social dimensions in the dominant view of modern landscape ecology in North America. This text is divided into three sections: (1) value systems (i.e., people’s perception), (2) ecological observations and processes, and (3) spatial pattern reorganization, time series, and dynamic modeling. The first section was centered on human and landscape interactions, or value systems (i.e., social perception). In the first chapter, Buchecker et al. introduced the fundamental concepts and theories on values and used two case studies (interest group vs. the general public and locals vs. tourists) to illustrate how survey data regarding the values/environment can be difficult when humans are included in the study. A call for value systems in landscape research was strongly voiced. In the following three chapters, the authors collectively presented further background into the original terminology, uses in historical policy/regulations, and roles in biological diversity. Clarification between ‘‘space’’ and ‘‘place’’ by Hunziker et al. was quite unique and stimulating. The second section (6 chapters) consists of text on data collections, analyses, interpretations and ‘‘ecological’’ research in landscapes. Through illustrations of remote sensing technology in landscape analysis, Zimmermann et al. brought up key issues, such as the J. Chen (&) Landscape Ecology and Ecosystem Science (LEES), University of Toledo, Toledo, OH 43606, USA e-mail: Jiquan.Chen@utoledo.edu