EFForTS-LGraf: A landscape generator for creating smallholder-driven land-use mosaics.

Spatially-explicit simulation models are commonly used to study complex ecological and socio-economic research questions. Often these models depend on detailed input data, such as initial land-cover maps to set up model simulations. Here we present the landscape generator EFFortS-LGraf that provides artificially-generated land-use maps of agricultural landscapes shaped by small-scale farms.

Land-use change in oil palm dominated tropical landscapes-An agent-based model to explore ecological and socio-economic trade-offs.

Land-use changes have dramatically transformed tropical landscapes. We describe an ecological-economic land-use change model as an integrated, exploratory tool used to analyze how tropical land-use change affects ecological and socio-economic functions. The model analysis seeks to determine what kind of landscape mosaic can improve the ensemble of ecosystem functioning, biodiversity, and economic benefit based on the synergies and trade-offs that we have to account for.

A review of the ecosystem functions in oil palm plantations, using forests as a reference system.

Oil palm plantations have expanded rapidly in recent decades. This large-scale land-use change has had great ecological, economic, and social impacts on both the areas converted to oil palm and their surroundings. However, research on the impacts of oil palm cultivation is scattered and patchy, and no clear overview exists.

Breaking functional connectivity into components: a novel approach using an individual-based model, and first outcomes.

Landscape connectivity is a key factor determining the viability of populations in fragmented landscapes. Predicting 'functional connectivity', namely whether a patch or a landscape functions as connected from the perspective of a focal species, poses various challenges. First, empirical data on the movement behaviour of species is often scarce.