Landscape ecology, island biogeography, and metapopulation theory have all had both an implicit and explicit impact on management for conservation. This is particularly apparent in the debates that ran through the 1970s, 80s, and 90s concerning the optimum size and shape of nature reserves: the single large or several small (SLOSS) debate.
Here, some favoured single large reserves on the basis that such a strategy ensured viable minimal areas for all species of conservation value and in particular stressed the apparent benefits of the large island model from island biogeography theory where area and habitat diversity reduced extinction rates.
Secondly, those who championed several smaller reserves as a way of countering regional extinction while acknowledging the possibility of local extinction referred to the recolonisation potential within a metapopulation. They also stressed the value of connectedness derived from landscape ecology and quoted it as an antidote to the relative isolation of smaller reserves.
Both positions are oversimplifications and there is no correct solution though the insight provided by theory continues to inform decision making.
In these three paintings the total area of the circles remains constant, but in each painting that total area is distributed differently so that the number and size of the circles varies between the works thereby illuststrating the SLOSS debate alluded to above
