Chapter 10 Flashcards
Species richness
Species richness
The number of species in a community.
Diversity index
Measures that combine both species richness and evenness.
Niche breadth
The amount of resources a species uses on the resource continuum. Defined as n.
Niche overlap
The overlap between the amount of resources of adjacent species on the resource continuum. Defined as o.
Productivity hypothesis
If higher productivity is correlated with a wider range of available resources, then this is likely to lead to an increase in species richness.
Energy hypothesis
Higher temperatures mean species are more active, and have higher rates of metabolism (more growth, more reproduction, more individuals).
Eutrophication
When a body of water becomes overly enriched with nutrients.
Paradox of enrichment
High productivity leads to high rates of population growth, bringing about the extinction of some species due to competition.
Particulate organic matter (POC)
The rain of chemical energy falling as dead organic matter from the sea surface.
α-diversity
The diversity within a single community
Shannon index
A measure of species diversity/evenness.
H’= -1 * Sum{p_i*ln(p_i), p_i is the proportion of a species i.
ꞵ-diversity
The diversity between communities (ꞵ=𝛾/sum of all α).
𝛾-diversity
Diversity between all communities in a landscape.
Potential evapotranspiration (PET)
The amount of water that would evaporate or be transpired from a saturated surface.
Intermediate disturbance hypothesis
Communities are expected to contain the most species when the frequency of disturbance is neither too high nor too low.
