Ecosemiotic Landscape

Description

The distinction between humans and the natural world is an artefact and more a matter of linguistic communication than a conceptual separation. This Element proposes ecosemiotics as an epistemological tool to better understand the relationship between human and natural processes. Ecosemiotics with its affinity to the humanities, is presented here as the best disciplinary approach for interpreting complex environmental conditions for a broad audience, across a multitude of temporal and spatial scales. It is proposed as an intellectual bridge between divergent sciences to incorporate within a unique framework different paradigms. The ecosemiotic paradigm helps to explain how organisms interact with their external environments using mechanisms common to all living beings that capture external information and matter for internal usage. This paradigm can be applied in all the circumstances where a living being (man, animal, plant, fungi, etc.) performs processes to stay alive. Cover Title page Copyright page Ecosemiotic Landscape: A Novel Perspective for the Toolbox of Environmental Humanities Contents 1 Introduction 2 Environmental Complexity: An Ecosemiotic Vision 2.1 Synthesis 3 Environmental Uncertainty: Contrasting Strategies and Species Adaptation 3.1 Synthesis 4 Information Theory and Meaning 4.1 Synthesis 4.2 A Short History and Definition 4.3 Private and Public Information 4.4 Abiotic and Biotic Information 4.5 Meaning and Information 4.6 Measuring Information 5 The Role of Ecology in the Ecosemiotic Arena 5.1 Synthesis 5.2 r/K Strategies 5.3 Source/Sink Model 5.4 Ecological Niche Theory 6 Landscape Dimension: Some Relevant Characteristics of Landscape 6.1 Synthesis 6.2 Landscape as a Geographical Region 6.3 Landscape as an Ecological Entity 6.4 Landscape as a Cultural Entity 6.5 Contemplative and Aesthetic Entity 6.6 Landscape Ontogenesis 6.6.1 Patch Novelties 6.6.2 Inter-patch Competition 6.6.3 Intra-patch Succession 7 Resources: A General Theory 7.1 Synthesis 7.2 Concluding Comments 8 An Ecosemiotic Approach to Landscape Description and Interpretation: From Zoosemiotics to an Eco-field Model 8.1 Synthesis 8.2 Elements of Zoosemiotics 8.3 Encoding Processes 8.4 Landscape Ecosemiotics 8.5 The Type of Signs that are springing from a Landscape 8.6 Latent Landscape 8.7 Sensed Landscape 8.8 Interpreted Landscape 8.9 The Eco-field Model 8.10 Private and Public Landscape 9 Fundamentals of Ecoacoustics: A New Quantitative Contribution to the Ecosemiotic Narrative 9.1 Synthesis 9.2 Noise 9.3 A Contribution to Ecoacoustics Epistemology 9.3.1 The Adaptive Domain 9.3.2 The Geographical Domain 9.3.3 The Behavioral Domain 9.3.3.1 Acoustic Communities 9.3.3.2 Acoustic Habitats 9.3.4 The Ecosemiotic Domain 9.3.4.1 Near and Far Field 9.4 Concluding Remarks 10 Cultural Landscapes 10.1 Synthesis 10.2 The “Empty” and “Full” World Models 10.3 The Characteristics of Cultural Landscapes 10.4 Ontogenesis of a Cultural Landscape 10.5 Values from a Cultural Landscape 10.6 Conservation 10.7 Strategies for Implementing the Environmental HumanitiesApproach: The Rural Sanctuary, a Simple Model for ReconcilingNature and People 11 Conclusions References