WETLAND HABITAT PATCHES AS ECOLOGICAL COMPONENTS OF LANDSCAPE MEMORY IN A HIGHLY MODIFIED FLOODPLAIN

Landscape memory and ecological memory are relatively new concepts developed independently in geomorphology and ecology. Eco‐geomorphology strives to enrich the concept of landscape memory with that of ecological memory, as ecosystems build inherent parts of landscapes and are controlled by geomorphological factors. This integration is illustrated by a small‐scale eco‐geomorphological case study of links between ecosystems and their hydrogeomorphological template, in the floodplain of a medium size Hungarian River. Despite that the river is channelized by 1835 and most of the study area is under intensive agricultural cultivation, the seminatural vegetation along the various reaches shows significant variations according to geomorphological background variables: detrended correspondence analysis yields results of p = 0.002 significance. Our results prove that geomorphological patterns in floodplains, defined by landscape memory, and the related vegetation patterns, as manifestations of ecological memory, jointly determine the face of floodplain landscapes. The integration of ecological memory into the definition of landscape memory may help meet the challenges of eco‐geomorphology and facilitate a holistic understanding of landscapes, and thus be instrumental for reconstructing past environments—both in theory (scientific research) and practice (rehabilitation projects). Copyright © 2013 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.