Ecotope

The (or the) ecotope ( Greek oikos 'house', 'living space' and topos 'place') is a term from landscape ecology . It describes the spatial extent and the inanimate components of an ecosystem in which a certain interaction of environmental factors takes place. It is the spatial representative of different Econs of the same structure that are related to one another.

Definition of terms

In parlance, the terms ecotope and ecosystem are sometimes confused or used synonymously:

• An ecosystem is at best the model of the functioning of an ecotope
• An ecotope comprises the locally found and actually representational totality of the inanimate components of an area.

In relation to a community, the ecotope is called a biotope . One considers several biotopes,

• mostly the inanimate components of the habitat of a biocenosis (community) or
• more rarely their components hydrotop , pedotop , climatop .

In the hierarchical system of landscape ecological spatial units, ecotopes represent the (in the geographical sense homogeneous) basic units, while the eco-zones occupy the highest level of the biosphere . If necessary, further subdivision levels can be inserted between ecotopes and eco-zones, which can for example be referred to as ecoregions , eco-provinces and eco-districts.

Transferred use of the term

→ Main article : "Use of the term outside of ecology" in the article Ecosystem

The term is also used in a figurative sense when it comes to more or less closed areas of computer use: The environments of the individual operating systems are referred to as ecotope (" Linux -Ökotope", " Windows -Ökotope", ...), but also individual ones Areas of application with greater expansion in society (“ecotope of commercial data collection”). Here, too, the terms ecotope and ecosystem are sometimes used synonymously . In 2006, Helfried Schmidt adapted the ecotope approach to economic cycles for the first time and described demarcable economic areas as regiotopes .

swell

1. ↑ Use of the term in the article Im Netz der Scouts - DER SPIEGEL 2/2011, accessed on May 30, 2017.
2. ↑ PT magazine: Economic area as REGIOTOP. Retrieved May 9, 2019 . 

• Readers, Hartmut (1997): Landscape Ecology. 4., rework. Stuttgart: Ulmer (UTB; 521). - ISBN 3-8252-0521-5
• Dieter Heinrich; Manfred Hergt (1994): dtv-Atlas zur Ökologie. 3rd edition Munich: Dt. Taschenbuch-Verlag (dtv); 3228. - ISBN 3-423-03228-6