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Posted by
Kevin Lynch

What is meant by topographic barrier?

Declining USA  Follow

Whether something is considered a topographic barrier for an organism depends on the species being considered and its ability to traverse the terrain from one side of the barrier to the other. There's no blanket classification of what is considered a topographic barrier and what isn't.

For example, a certain mountain range may be a topographic gradient to a salamander (due to limited food, extreme weather conditions, etc.), but these same mountains might not be for a brown bear.

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Benit Black  Follow

Topograhpy refers to earth's physical features and a topographic barrier refers to physical features that prevent free movement from one position to another. As GForce pointed out, whether or not something is a barrier can depend heavily on the animal in question. A long, wide canyon can be a barrier for squirrels, but not for birds.

Think of topographic as referring to features on a map, which is a type of topological graph.

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