Community Ecology

  1. What is a community and its structure?
    • - community - an association of interacting species inhabiting some defined area
    • - community structure - includes number of species, relative abundance of species, and type of species
  2. Species diversity depends on...?
    • Species evenness, and species richness
    • Higher in more complex environments with many niches
  3. What does rank abundance curves show?
    • Shows both components of species diversity - species evenness and richness
    • Flatter rank abundance curve with lower slope indicates greater species evenness
    • If comparing 2 species, the one that extends farther has greater species richness
  4. What does spatial heterogeneity do in an environment?
    • Spatial heterogeneity can affect the coexistence of 2 or more species
    • If nutrients are low in one place, but high in another, spatial heterogeneity can allow the species to coexist
  5. Alpha vs Beta diversity
    • Alpha diversity - each community might have similar diversity within its boundaries
    • Beta diversity - diversity may stay the same (alpha), but encounter new species
  6. Intermediate disturbance hypothesis
    • Intermediate levels of disturbance promotes higher diversity
    • Without disturbance, competitive exclusion operates
    • With too much disturbance, only a few r-selected species with rapid colonization and life cycles inhabit
    • Results in homogenization of communities, reducing beta diversity
  7. Food webs and trophic biology
    • Trophic biology refers to the feeding relationships in communities
    • Relationships are often depicted as food webs, which present feeding hierarchies as trophic levels
  8. Direct vs. Indirect Interactions
    • Direct interactions involve effects of one species on another without the influence of a third (parasitism, herbivory, predation)
    • Indirect - where one species affects another through a third species
Author
study849
ID
207816
Card Set
Community Ecology
Description
Covering Chs 16-18 Ecology textbook, and lecture
Updated