Within this study, a landscape is a ‘heterogeneous land area composed of a cluster of interacting ecosystems that is repeated in similar form throughout’ (R. T. T. Forman and M. Godron 1986). Landscape ecology specifically addresses the importance of spatial configuration for ecological processes (M. Turner et al. 2001). The central themes are: detecting a pattern, and expressing it in quantitative terms; identifying and describing the agents of pattern formation; understanding the ecological implications of the pattern; spatially and temporally characterizing the changes in pattern and process; and managing landscapes to achieve human objectives. For ten differing definitions of landscape ecology, see the United States Regional Association for Landscape Ecology site.