Space, time, connectivity and conflict in biological landscapes: the fourth special issue on spatial ecology

Spatial ecology and the spatial sciences in general are increasingly applied to support evidence-based policy and environmental management decisions in an era of global change. The effects of global change agents – climate change, land-use change, novel species, and altered biogeochemical cycles and disturbance regimes – play out over multiple spatial and temporal scales. International and multilateral agencies are calling for spatially explicit information in support of policy and management supporting biodiversity, ecosystem services and sustainable environmental management. Conservation and environmental planning can no longer be restricted to a static landscape but must explicitly account for temporal dynamics.