Biogeomorphology
For example, trees can reduce landslide potential where their roots penetrate to underlying rock, plants and their litter inhibit soil erosion, biochemicals produced by plants accelerate the chemical weathering of bedrock and regolith, and marine animals cause the bioerosion of coral.
[1] In recent years a large number of articles have appeared in the literature dealing with how terrain attributes affect crop growth and yield in farm fields, and while they don't use the term phytogeomorphology the dependencies are the same.
[4] The earliest work related to biogeomorphology was Charles Darwin's 1881 book titled The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms.
[5][6] Although the field of biogeomorphology had not yet been named, Darwin's work represents the earliest examination of a faunal organism influencing landscape process and form.
[6] Charles Darwin begins his work on worms with an examination of behavior and physiology, which then moves towards topics related to geomorphology, pedogenesis, and bioturbation.
[5][7] Despite the popularity of Darwin's final work, the scientific community was slow to recognize the significance of examining the role of organisms in influencing landscapes.
The approach is simply to employ large replication studies and deriving patterns from statistical data.
[9] Whereas taking a more geomorphic research approach tends to derive patterns via theoretic knowledge and detailed measurements of multiple factors.
That is, processes such as fires, floods and hillslope instability directly or indirectly determining the distribution of flora and in turn fauna.
Stability domain describes the interaction of a set species and certain abiotic factors that act as a medium to the function and structure of an environment.
[4] An example of this can simply be the flame retardant properties in the bark of Coastal Sequoias due to the recurrence of fires Biogeomorphology and ecogeomorphology can aid with assessing the impacts of global climate change.
[15] Using statistical data, one can derive how these environmental changes will affect the biodiversity of different trophic levels and different keystone species.
