A mosaic of fields and forests in the Willamette Basin, Oregon, USA.

Different land uses have created a varied landscape in the Willamette Basin of Oregon that supports a rich array of species as well as an array of economic activities. Researchers have recently developed a spatially explicit model for analyzing the consequences of alternative land-use patterns on various species and market-oriented economic returns. They found that, with careful land-use planning, a large fraction of conservation objectives can be achieved at little cost to the economic bottom line. This photograph originally appeared on the cover of Ecological Applications (15:4) in August of 2005.