Hierarchy Theory: A Guide to System Structure for Wildlife Biologists

Hierarchy theory is part of the conceptual foundation of landscape ecology. Developments in landscape ecology over the past decade have cooccurred with developments of hierarchy theory as applied to ecological systems, and many individual authors have contributed to both. The seminal monographs of Forman and GodronLandscape Ecologyand O’Neill et al.A Hierarchical Concept of Ecosystemswere both published in 1986 (Forman and Godron 1986, O’Neill et al. 1986). Robert (Bob) O’Neill in particular has contributed a great deal to both fields (e.g. O’Neill 1988 1989, O’Neill et al. 1986, 1988 1989). By 1987 Urban et al. (1987) had proposed a hierarchal perspective for landscape ecology. In 1989Landscape Ecology (Volume 3, nos. 3/4) published the proceedings of a workshop on scale. In this volume O’Neill et al. (1989)) argued that hierarchy theory provides a framework for the analyses of scale in landscapes and other ecological systems.

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