Applications of Remote Sensing in Landscape Ecology in Latin America

Dear Colleagues,

Latin America is characterized by a diverse range of landscapes from lowland tropical forests to the high Andean ecosystems, where human populations, of a mix of cultures and socioeconomic backgrounds, live and thrive. In this context, natural ecosystems play an essential ecological role. On one hand, supporting ecosystem services, such as biodiversity, food and resources for trade and subsistence in local communities. And on the other hand, as vaults of biodiversity of global relevance, despite large areas of net forest loss in recent years, in the vast areas of old-growth and secondary forest, steppes, wetlands and peatbogs. All this diversity, in terms of cultures, landscapes, remote areas, species and anthropogenic pressures, represents a huge challenge to understand and monitor at multiple spatial and temporal scales. Moreover, the large and often inaccessible areas in Latin America pose an important challenge for research, both logistically and economically. This supposes a central role for remote sensing that can provide global and regular observations of the surface.  

Landscape ecology, the study of the spatial heterogeneity that unravels the interplay between ecological patterns and processes and the interaction between ecosystems across scales, offers an holistic and interdisciplinary perspective critical to understand Latin America's complexity. In this special issue, we would like to present contributions that, focusing on a landscape ecology approach, combine ground and remote sensing data (satellite, air-borne, UAV), to explore the properties, feedbacks and scale dependent ecological process and patterns and their influence on biodiversity maintenance and human well being in Latin America.

Topics in this special issue include research and innovative methods in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems and natural and transformed settings that explore landscape ecological processes:

- Biodiversity (monitoring, distribution models, patterns and processes)
- Landscape patterns, processes and interactions (networks)
- Scale-dependency and landscape complexity
- Movement (range shifts, redistribution, occupancy)
- Earth pulse (Fire, floods, droughts, and other events)

Or investigate issues in the context of landscape ecology in the Anthropocene:

- Citizen science
- Urban ecology
- Landscape fragmentation (habitat loss, isolation and connectivity)
- Restoration planning/monitoring
- Land transformation: Land use and land cover change, climate change impacts and mitigation/adaptation.
- Ecosystem services, resilience and sustainability

Dr. Carol X. Garzon-Lopez
Prof. Dr. Daniel Moya
Dr. Veronica Andreo
Prof. Dr. Alejandro Miranda
Guest Editors

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