In ecology, Community dynamics can be defined as the changes in community structure and composition over time.  Sometimes these changes are induced by environmental disturbances such as storms, fires or extended drought.  

On working lands, disturbance is a defining attribute. This does not mean that life must recede from the farmer's field.  Far from it, healthy farmland has an evolved wildlife environment that has adapted to these conditions.  Agricultural lands can become ideal habitats for many species.  The challenge is to become aware of your actions in this context.

Land management decisions that focus only on the narrow definitions of product production are missing out on the awesome power of production found in diverse ecological communities. We know that a cropping field can never be a natural environment.  However, it can be managed in different ways to increase nature's role in production. 

We have all been taught the rain cycle.  Water evaporating, becoming clouds, falling as rain, ground water flows, evaporation and the cycle repeats.  A similar concept applys to nutrients.  These essential elements of life flow through a food web that encompases soil organisims, fungi,  plants, insects, birds, reptiles and  mammals. This cycling of nutrients happens through things eating other things.  Nutrients then return to the soil to nourish plants and organisms that grow to be food and so on.  The system is constantly resupplied with energy from the sun. Plants convert sunlight into new food and the timeless process goes on.  Water is the keystone element to this cycling of nutrients. Thin films, water vapors, energy transfer, and its role in photosynthesis are all critical functions within the ecology of a landscape. I look at these two aspects of ecology as one dynamic. Water and nutrient cycling is so interdependent that they can not thrive on your landscape without each other.

Water behaviors also have a physical influence on landscapes. It shapes the surface of land in healthy ways when the land is in balance and in very distructive ways when the land is out of balance. Understanding the physical force of water on landscapes is a profound management insight. 

Biodiversity is generally explored at three levels - genetic diversity, species diversity and ecosystem diversity. These three levels work together to create the complexity of life on Earth.

Genetic Diversity refers to the range of different inherited traits within a species. In a species with high genetic diversity, there would be many individuals with a wide variety of different traits. Genetic diversity is the key to a specie's resilience.  

Species Diversity is simply the number and relative abundance of species found in a given area.  I like to use birds as an indicator of species diversity.  These lovely creatures are gregarious and allow you to photograph them much easier than many other critters.   The presence (and relative abundance) of certain species tells a lot about the localized food web.

Ecosystem Diversity can be defined as the variety of different habitats, communities and ecological processes found in your landscape.  Modern farms have lost touch with the necessity for having multiple ecosystems and how they work in tandem.  Wetlands, forested habitats, stream riparian areas, and open fields all work together in a multitude of important ways.  The more you explore your land's biodiversity, the more you come to know this as an inescapable truth of healthy living.

For me, the most fascinating aspect of a landscape is the soil.  I have been developing a photography technique I call the Soil Studio.  This is a set of photography tools and techniques that bring awareness of soils into sharper focus when making management decisions.

It has taken me longer than I would like to admit to realize that soil is a living body.  In many ways, this body behaves similar to our own.  There are so many new insights that come with thinking about your soil in the context of what you know about your own body and its needs.  Visualizing the relationship between what is growing on the soil and what  the soil horizons below look like, opens a whole new frontier in regenerative land management.

The exciting discovery that soils are regenerative is at the heart of the Regenerative Agriculture movement.  It is often quoted by various experts that soils are a nonrenewable resource.  Nothing could be further from the truth.  Soil is renewed by reintroducing living things to dirt.  Unfortunately, there is more conflict than collaboration between the art of soil regeneration and the science of soils, but I am hopeful that we will mature and evolve our understanding and wonder.  Soils are such a critical foundation of humanity.