Landlevande

Landlevande is a term used in Swedish ecology and paleontology to describe organisms whose life cycles or primary habitats are on land. It is a lifestyle descriptor rather than a taxonomic group and encompasses a broad range of taxa, including terrestrial plants, insects, reptiles, birds, and mammals. The defining characteristic is dependence on land for at least part of their biology, whether for locomotion, feeding, reproduction, or habitat. Many landlevande organisms have evolved adaptations to cope with heat and desiccation, such as waxy coverings, seeds and spores, or amniotic eggs, as well as structures for terrestrial locomotion like legs or wings, and sensory systems suited to land environments.

In ecology, landlevande communities are contrasted with aquatic and aerial ecosystems and form the basis of most terrestrial biomes, from forests to deserts. The historical transition of life from water to land began hundreds of millions of years ago, with early land plants in the Paleozoic and vertebrate colonization of land in the late Paleozoic and Mesozoic. This transition enabled new ecological interactions, such as predator–prey dynamics, pollination, and complex soil ecosystems.

Today, landlevande is used as a broad descriptive term in Swedish-language science, field guides, and educational materials to denote organisms that rely primarily on terrestrial habitats, while recognizing that many species exhibit life stages or behaviors that span multiple environments.