Centre for Ecological Research, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, H-2163, Vácrátót, Alkotmány u, 2-4,, Hungary.
J Ethnobiol Ethnomed. 2012 Aug 1;8:28. doi: 10.1186/1746-4269-8-28.
Landscape ethnoecology focuses on the ecological features of the landscape, how the landscape is perceived, and used by people who live in it. Though studying folk classifications of species has a long history, the comparative study of habitat classifications is just beginning. I studied the habitat classification of herders in a Hungarian steppe, and compared it to classifications of botanists and laymen.
For a quantitative analysis the picture sort method was used. Twenty-three pictures of 7-11 habitat types were sorted by 25 herders.'Density' of pictures along the habitat gradient of the Hortobágy salt steppe was set as equal as possible, but pictures differed in their dominant species, wetness, season, etc. Before sorts, herders were asked to describe pictures to assure proper recognition of habitats.
Herders classified the images into three main groups: (1) fertile habitats at the higher parts of the habitat gradient (partos, lit. on the shore); (2) saline habitats (szík, lit. salt or saline place), and (3) meadows and marshes (lapos, lit. flooded) at the lower end of the habitat gradient. Sharpness of delimitation changed along the gradient. Saline habitats were the most isolated from the rest. Botanists identified 6 groups. Laymen grouped habitats in a less coherent way.As opposed to my expectations, botanical classification was not more structured than that done by herders. I expected and found high correspondence between the classifications by herders, botanists and laymen. All tended to recognize similar main groups: wetlands, "good grass" and dry/saline habitats. Two main factors could have been responsible for similar classifications: salient features correlated (e.g. salinity recognizable by herders and botanists but not by laymen correlated with the density of grasslands or height of vegetation recognizable also for laymen), or the same salient features were used as a basis for sorting (wetness, and abiotic stress).
Despite all the difficulties of studying habitat classifications (more implicit, more variable knowledge than knowledge on species), conducting landscape ethnoecological research will inevitably reveal a deeper human understanding of biological organization at a supraspecific level, where natural discontinuities are less sharp than at the species or population level.
景观民族生态学侧重于景观的生态特征、人们对景观的感知以及利用。虽然研究民间物种分类的历史由来已久，但对栖息地分类的比较研究才刚刚开始。我研究了匈牙利草原牧民的栖息地分类，并将其与植物学家和非专业人士的分类进行了比较。
为了进行定量分析，使用了图片分类法。25 名牧民对 23 张 7-11 种栖息地类型的图片进行了分类。霍托巴吉盐草原栖息地梯度的图片“密度”尽可能设置得相等，但图片在其优势物种、湿度、季节等方面存在差异。在分类之前，要求牧民描述图片，以确保对栖息地的正确识别。
牧民将图像分为三个主要组：（1）栖息地梯度较高处的肥沃栖息地（partos，意为岸边）；（2）盐生栖息地（szík，意为盐或盐生场所）；（3）栖息地梯度较低处的草地和沼泽（lapos，意为淹没）。沿梯度的划分清晰度发生变化。盐生栖息地与其他栖息地的隔离度最高。植物学家识别出 6 个组。非专业人士的分组方式不那么连贯。与我的预期相反，植物学分类并不比牧民的分类更具结构性。我期望并发现牧民、植物学家和非专业人士的分类之间存在高度一致性。所有人都倾向于识别出类似的主要群体：湿地、“好草”和干旱/盐生栖息地。两个主要因素可能导致了类似的分类：相关的显著特征（例如，盐度可被牧民和植物学家识别，但不能被非专业人士识别，与草原密度或植被高度相关，也可被非专业人士识别），或相同的显著特征被用作分类的基础（湿度和非生物胁迫）。
尽管研究栖息地分类存在诸多困难（与物种相比，知识更隐晦、更具变异性），但进行景观民族生态学研究将不可避免地揭示出人类对生物组织的更深层次理解，在超种水平上，自然不连续性比在物种或种群水平上不那么明显。
