Introduction

Habitat fragmentation is the nearly inevitable result of contemporary land use. Beyond the biodiversity shadow cast by reserves and habitat protection plans, settlement patterns continue to extirpate remaining habitats. This reality should lead landscape ecologists and natural resource managers to vigorously investigate small patches of habitat. While accumulating knowledge of landscape structure and function leaves no doubt about the critical importance of large indigenous habitat patches, knowledge of the ecological function of small patches is comparatively meager. Yet opportunities for preserving or creating small patches characterize human land use. Informed by landscape ecology, conservation biology, ecosystem management, and restoration ecology, humans have only recently begun to preserve and reconnect the pieces of what were once large, continuous ecosystems. The undeniable trend of contemporary settlement patterns suggests that the small shall inherit the earth. How these small patches can serve ecological functions is a pragmatic question for landscape ecology.

A bird's-eye view of settled landscapes today presents a striking image of the impact of humans on the natural world. The landscape pattern observed is profoundly influenced by culture, created according to political systems, economic uses, aesthetic preferences, and social conventions (Nassauer, 1995). Culture, defined as “the sum total of ways of living built up by a group of human beings and transmitted from one generation to another” (Random House, 1987), not only influences landscape patterns, it can also suggest new landscapes designed to promote ecological function (Nassauer, 1995). New landscape patterns designed without consideration of the appearance of cultural values on the land are not culturally sustainable (Nassauer, 1992, 1997).