Chapter 20 - Community Predation and Competition

Question 1

What biological processes can communities be organized?

Answer 1

1. Competition
2. Predation
3. Herbivory
4. Mutualism

Question 2

What is a tropic level?

Answer 2

A tropic level describes what sources of energy an organism uses (primary producer, herbivore, carnivore, etc)

Question 3

What is a feeding guild?

Answer 3

A feeding guild is a group of species that exploit a common resource base in a similar fashion.

Question 4

What is a keystone species?

Answer 4

Rare species of low abundance in a community but whose removal has drastic effects on many other species in the community.

Question 5

What is the difference between generalists and specialist?

Answer 5

Generalists are species that eat/take energy from multiple different sources. Specialists are species that eat from one or two specific species/sources. When that species is limited, the specialist is limited in what or how often it can eat.

Question 6

What is a dominant species?

Answer 6

A dominant species that is the most common species in the community and which may be a major player in defining the organization of the community.

Question 7

What is the difference between a dominant species and a keystone species?

Answer 7

A dominant species is a species that is the most abundant in a community. A keystone species is a species that is the most important/impactful in a community.

Question 8

What is the Energetic Hypothesis?

Answer 8

The length of the food chain is limited by the inefficiency of energy transfer along the chain.

Question 9

What is the Dynamic Stability Hypothesis?

Answer 9

Short food chains are more common because larger food chains are not stable; fluctuations at lower levels are magnified at higher levels.