Through its focus, Applied and Landscape Ecology is a relatively broad field that includes disciplines of purely basic research nature, through combined, to exclusively applied research, or directions with innovative potential. The field is simultaneously based on biological (ecological) and technical (engineering) foundations. Among other things, this trans-disciplinary character is reflected in frequent assigning of dissertations topics on the edge of standardly-understood fields (e.g. landscape ecology/landscape architecture, ecology/hydrology, agriculture/ecology, land reclamation/geochemistry). The field of Applied and Landscape Ecology is not bound to one or two departments but is open to doctoral students of all departments of the faculty.