众所周知，几乎所有的生态学特征和现象都受限于一定的时间和空间。因此，相应的科学假设和相关的生态学结论也只能基于这些特定的时空尺度范围。我们利用颇为熟知的事例，引用生态学文献中的具体实例，提纲挈领地论述了时空在生态学研究中的重要性。这些实例包括我们在长白山对云、冷杉(Picea jezoensis, Abies nephrolepis)林林冠结构的模拟、在北美应用遥感和气象方法对碳通量的估算,以及测定湿地生态系统对加温的反应等。文中所涉及的所有生态学现象，对时间和空间都有强烈的依赖性。因而, 从生态学问题的提出，到科学假设的演绎，以至试验设计和综合数据分析，都必须以时、空为前提，才不至于导致荒谬结论。
Virtually all ecological investigations are conducted and constrained within a range of time and space. This suggests that interpretations of the results must be specific and that extrapolations must be made with caution. We present a hypothetical example illustrating temporal and spatial interactions as confounding factors in ecological research. Through a series of case studies, we illustrate the importance of placing our hypotheses, results from testing those hypotheses, and our conclusions in relevant scales of time and space. Our case studies focus on the ecological effects of scale for determining pattern-process relationships in a montane spruce-fir forest in China, modeling forest canopy structure, predicting carbon flux in forests the Pacific Northwest, USA; detecting temporal scales of variation in carbon flux and meteorological data from deciduous forests in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA; and formulating conclusions from a long-term soil-warming experiment of peatlands in Minnesota, USA. We recommend additional efforts for examining ecological phenomena across multiple temporal and spatial scales.