Landscape and Urban Planning 70 (2005) 205–219 The pattern of landscape patches and invasion of naturalized plants in developed areas of urban Seoul In-Ju Song a , Sun-Kee Hong b,∗ , Hyun-Ok Kim c , Byungseol Byun d , Yuri Gin a a Seoul Development Institute, Seoul 137-071, South Korea b Environmental Planning Institute, Seoul National University, Seoul 151-742, South Korea c Technical University Berlin, Berlin, Germany d Inha University, Incheon, 402-751, South Korea Abstract Fragmented developed areas usually support source-sink patches for invasive organisms in urban landscapes. Invasive plants that have a different origin than the spreading source have an important role in artificial landscape restoration in degraded areas. However, many alien plant species have invaded the original habitat or ecosystem of native plants; sequentially their fast growing populations colonize neighboring ecosystems easily. Biological contamination sometimes occurs, unbalancing biodiversity in the natural landscape system. Therefore, long-term monitoring for dynamic communities after restoration in urban areas is indispensable for establishing a strategy for sustainable urban management. Under this principle we have examined the spreading of representative naturalized plant species according to recent land use changes. In this study, we have selected two representative invasive plants, Robinia pseudoacacia and Eupatorium rugosum. Their distribution pattern and patch characteristics of population were identified by the data of Seoul Biotope Map and a field survey. As a result of GIS-aided analysis of landscape patches, these two species often occurred in the same place. Concentration patterns of population distribution were found in forest edges disturbed by development of roads and human settlement. Especially, Eupatorium rugosum had extended to inner forest patches although the individuals were scattered. Distribution patterns of those species were partly related to landscape indices such as patch size and shape of the forest edge. © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Keywords: Distributed characteristics; Eupatorium rugosum; Korea; Landscape pattern; Naturalized plants; Patch shape; Robinia pseudoacacia 1. Introduction Landscape ecology has taken well-conserved nature as a study object and nature conservation has been recognized to be necessary only in the boundaries of urban-rural areas and green-belt zones (Forman and Godron, 1986; Sukopp, 1994; Forman, 1995). The dis- turbance enforced upon land in urban and suburban ∗ Corresponding author. Tel.: +82-18-312-3738; fax: +82-32-438-3824. E-mail address: pinehong@soback.kornet.net (S.-K. Hong). area, which resulted from urbanization, caused dam- age to the natural environment and the rural landscape of traditional and stable quality in the perimeters of residential areas. Therefore it is necessary to seek a land use plan capable of preserving existing original landscape (Forman, 1995; Hong, 2001; Hong et al., 2001), and the heightening of public awareness about harmony and congruence with nature in urban and hu- man settlement areas. The methods to make ecological urban spaces are various but ecological comprehension about ur- ban space-the analyses and assessment of urban 0169-2046/$20.00 © 2003 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.landurbplan.2003.10.018