Landscape patterns and soundscape processes

A landscape consists of a mosaic of patches and corridors within a background matrix (Forman 1995; Forman and Godron 1986). These landscape elements include a mix of ecosystem or land use types that may be randomly distributed or regularly repeated. Structural patterns within a landscape may be the result of a range of natural processes such as gradients in physical parameters, including sunlight, temperature, rainfall, and substrate, and biotic features like species interactions, dispersal, succession, and natural disturbance regimes. Anthropogenic processes of development, agriculture, hydrological modifications, and climate change also create landscape patterns. Boundaries between landscape elements may be abrupt or diffuse, depending on the type(s) of processes that have created them and feedback loops involved. Landscape pattern is the primary factor determining functional flows and movements and there is a feedback where flows create pattern by changing processes over time (Forman 1995)..