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Sounds - mechanical vibrations transmitted through an elastic medium - are generated by physical and biological agents and permeate every terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem on Earth. Soundscapes function as a container for different sources of semantic information that requires specific decoding processes which are interpreted by individual species, and there are various categories within the soundscapes arena. However, there is not an immediate connection between acoustic complexity and species richness, especially where soniferous species have a broad acoustic repertoire, as in temperate regions. [Extracted from the article]

The soundscape is proposed as a phenomenological entity with which to investigate environmental complexity. In particular, the avian soundtope, which is defined as a place in which sound is intentionally structured by different bird species, is regarded as an agency acting to achieve several goals. In fact, the soundtope could be viewed as a special case of an eco-field used by birds, not only to establish territorial ownership and patrol an area but also as a means of locating and evaluating the availability of many other material and immaterial resources. The meaning of the multifaceted acoustic pattern produced by bird communities during the breeding season is discussed here under the acoustic niche hypothesis in terms of community coalescence and the permanent establishment of an inter-specific communication network. Furthermore, the spatial and temporal dimensions of a bird soundscape have also been analyzed and discussed in terms of their relationship with environmental proxies. A new Acoustic Complexity Index (ACI), coupled with the implementation (ACI plug-in) of a specific sound editor (WaveSurfer©), is proposed as a way of processing sound data efficiently, thus providing new opportunities to use the bird soundscape signature for landscape characterization and describing the ecological dynamics of long-term monitoring schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flexibility is required in modern times to comprehend vast and fluctuating levelscapes of information. The ability to observe, simulate, and assimilate situations and circumstances from different points of reference and view is paramount for survival. This ability as preamble to consequence in landscape is valid, and provides an impetus for expanding landscape ecology from its traditional realm of definitive terrafirma to an assimilation of terraform (i.e. the process that alters an environment capable of supporting life forms). The traditional human-nature duplexity, regarding landscape ecology, is simulated with real and virtual fields in a noöspheric configuration. The involvement of culture (i.e. by consensus of value) and history (i.e. by sequencing relevancy) is a contributing determinant of ''real'' (landscaper) and ''virtual'' (landscapev) fields of existence and extinction. Within this noöspheric network unique observations of landscape ecology are possible (e.g. eco-field). Suggested in the noöspheric network, aesthetics is an efficiency relevant to life-support systems exemplified by value that precludes aestheticism (i.e. typically limited to a dichotomy of beautiful and ugly). Aesthetics viewed as a transcending process through levels of ecological organization and as a transcending property of transcending processes becomes understood as economy (energetic efficiency) capable of supporting nonmarket and market units of valuation. The consequence of these units of valuation articulates as subjects or objects of criticism within an aesthetic set point model, which measures individual or societal tolerance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cognition is recognized as an essential component of the living strategies of organisms and the use of cognitive approaches based on an organismic-centered-view is discussed as a strategy to aid the advancement of landscape ecology to a more independent scientific discipline. The incorporation of the theory of information, the theory of meaning and the Umwelt, and the biosemiotic models into the landscape ecology framework is described as the necessary step to create a common paradigmatic background and operational tools to develop basis for a cognitive landscape ecology. Three cognitive landscapes (neutrality-based landscape, individual-based landscape and observer-based landscape) have been described as the result of distinctive mechanisms to extract information from a cognitive matrix based on a growing literature of (bio)semiotic exchange. The eco-field hypothesis is presented as a new possibility to describe landscape processes according to an organismic-centered-view. The eco-field is defined as a spatial configuration carrier of a specific meaning perceived when a specific living function is activated. A species-specific cognitive landscape is composed of all the spatial configurations involved for all the living functions for a particular organism. Eco-field hypothesis offers a detailed vision of (habitat) environmental requirements and creates a novel conceptual bridge between niche, habitat, Umwelt and the methodological approaches of spatial ecology. Finally the eco-field hypothesis promises a new testing ground for experimental investigations in landscape ecology and in related disciplines including environmental psychology, cognitive ethology, cultural ecology, landscape aesthetics, design and planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Landscape ecology deals with ecological processes in their spatial context. It shares with ecosystem ecology the primate of emergent ecological disciplines. The aim of this contribution is to approach the definition of landscapes using cognitive paradigms. Neutral-based landscape (NbL), individual-based landscape (IbL) and observed-based landscape (ObL) are defined to explore the cognitive mechanisms. NbL represents the undecoded component of the cognitive matrix. The IbL is the portion of landscape perceived by the biological sensors. ObL is the part of the cognitive matrix perceived using the cultural background of the observer. The perceived landscape (PL) is composed by the sum of these three approaches of landscape perception. Two further types of information (sensu Stonier) are recognized in this process of perception: the compressed information, as it is present inside the cognitive matrix, and the decompressed information that will structure the PL when a semiotic relationship operates between the organisms and the cognitive matrix. Scaling properties of these three PL components are recognized in space and time. In NbL scale seems irrelevant, in IbL the perception is filtered by organismic scaling and in ObL the spatio-temporal scale seems of major importance. Definitively, perception is scale-dependent. A combination of the cognitive approach with information paradigms to study landscapes opens new perspectives in the interpretation of ecological complexity. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In the spirit of the theory of biocomplexity and of the non-linear emergent characters of ecological systems, the eco-field is a new paradigm that integrates the vision of the landscape as a neutral matrix (like a habitat) in which organisms are living, and contemporarily as a product of the human mind. Eco-field is defined a ‘cognitive field’ created by the interference between functional traits and the ‘real world’. Species-specific environmental suitability is the result of the quality of the different eco-fields and the landscape becomes a cognitive entity. The eco-field paradigm can be extended to the emergent properties of the systems. The eco-field of emergences is the geographic space in which the emergent properties appear. The eco-field of organisms and the eco-field of emergences, like results of aggregated entities, have in common the multidimensionality of landscapes, refusing the vision of landscape like a neutral geographic matrix for organisms and processes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the editors discuss various articles within the issue on topics including the relation of soundscape ecology to acoustic ecology and landscape ecology, acoustics, and occupancy and nesting success of noisy and quiet landscapes.