ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the evolving and emerging roles of ecology as it relates to landscape and the consequent implications for design research and practice, and the dynamic dance between them. Ecology, in its fundamental sense, is the study of the interrelationships between and among organisms and their physical environment, first described by-or most often attributed to Ernst Haeckel in 1866. The generalized process of succession, in which one ecological community is replaced by another following disturbance events over time, was recognized by many naturalists effectively as a landscape process. The emergence of resilience in contemporary ecological theory is tied to an important and growing synergy between research and policy responses in the fields of ecology, landscape, and urbanism. Increasingly, as urban landscapes grow and become more complex in both structure and function, it is reasonable to expect continuing hybridization between cultural and natural domains of the city.
