title: A Holistic Landscape Description Reveals That Landscape Configuration Changes More over Time than Composition: Implications for Landscape Ecology Studies.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Space-for-time substitution-that is, the assumption that spatial variations of a system can explain and predict the effect of temporal variations-is widely used in ecology. However, it is questionable whether it can validly be used to explain changes in biodiversity over time in response to land-cover changes.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  Here, we hypothesize that different temporal vs spatial trajectories of landscape composition and configuration may limit space-for-time substitution in landscape ecology. Land-cover conversion changes not just the surface areas given over to particular types of land cover, but also affects isolation, patch size and heterogeneity. This means that a small change in land cover over time may have only minor repercussions on landscape composition but potentially major consequences for landscape configuration.
  
  
  METHODS
  Using land-cover maps of the Paris region for 1982 and 2003, we made a holistic description of the landscape disentangling landscape composition from configuration. After controlling for spatial variations, we analyzed and compared the amplitudes of changes in landscape composition and configuration over time.
  
  
  RESULTS
  For comparable spatial variations, landscape configuration varied more than twice as much as composition over time. Temporal changes in composition and configuration were not always spatially matched.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The fact that landscape composition and configuration do not vary equally in space and time calls into question the use of space-for-time substitution in landscape ecology studies. The instability of landscapes over time appears to be attributable to configurational changes in the main. This may go some way to explaining why the landscape variables that account for changes over time in biodiversity are not the same ones that account for the spatial distribution of biodiversity.
authors.affiliation: UMR 7533 CNRS-Paris 1-Paris 7-Paris 8-Paris 10, Laboratory of Social Dynamics and Space Recomposition [LADYSS], 2 rue Valette, FR-75005, Paris, France.|UMR 7204 MNHN-CNRS-UPCM, Center of Conservation Science [CESCO], 55 rue Buffon, FR-75005, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Anne
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Mimet
authors.affiliation: UMR 7204 MNHN-CNRS-UPCM, Center of Conservation Science [CESCO], 55 rue Buffon, FR-75005, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Pellissier
authors.affiliation: UMR 5602 CNRS-UTM, Geography of the Environment [GEODE], 5 Allée A. Machado, FR-31058, Toulouse, Cedex 1, France.
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Houet
authors.affiliation: UMR 7204 MNHN-CNRS-UPCM, Center of Conservation Science [CESCO], 55 rue Buffon, FR-75005, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Romain
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Julliard
authors.affiliation: UMR 7533 CNRS-Paris 1-Paris 7-Paris 8-Paris 10, Laboratory of Social Dynamics and Space Recomposition [LADYSS], 2 rue Valette, FR-75005, Paris, France.
authors.forename: Laurent
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Simon
mesh_terms: D017753:Ecosystem; D005843:Geography; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D010297:Paris; D013997:Time Factors