Community Ecology

Question 1

Define inter- interactions

Answer 1

interactions between different species

Question 2

Define intra interactions

Answer 2

Interactions between the same species.

Question 3

What are different community interactions

Answer 3

Competition, predation, symbioses.

Question 4

Define Mutualism

Answer 4

A relationship where both species benefit

Question 5

What is Commensalism

Answer 5

A relationship where one species benefits but the other is unharmed.

Question 6

What is Parasitism

Answer 6

A relationship where one species benefits at the expense of the other.

Question 7

How is symbiosis a specturm

Answer 7

Often the species on the host will be happy to cause harm when the host is weak.

Question 8

What example of spectrum symbioses did we look at in classs.

Answer 8

A yeast on our skin that occupies the space other parasites cannot inhabit, this yeast would happily cause us harm when we are immune compromised.

Question 9

What happens when there is an overlap in niches

Answer 9

Competition.

Question 10

How does natural selection act on overlapping niches.

Answer 10

Natural selection will lead to specialization in a certain niche.
When a species gets out competed for a resource, the individuals that do not require that resource will be the fitter individuals.

Question 11

Define Competitive Exclusion

Answer 11

for any given niche, one species can fill it in a geographic area.

Question 12

What example did we see in class of competitive exclusion

Answer 12

A species of bacteria will grow fine when separate, but when grown together only one will proliferate.

Question 13

What is the difference between a fundamental niche and a realized niche?

Answer 13

A fundamental niche is the total area that a species can exist, the realized niche is where it does exist.

Question 14

What example did we see in class of a realized niche

Answer 14

A barnacle that can grow at many heights, but is only found at a higher level because of competition at lower heights.

Question 15

Define Resource Partitioning

Answer 15

Competition avoidance.

Question 16

What is a unique resource that birds have partitioned to avoid competition.

Answer 16

Sound frequencies.

Overlapping sounds would lead to competition for mates, space etc.

Question 17

Define Trophic

Answer 17

Eating

Question 18

How long is the largest known food chain

Answer 18

7 links.

Question 19

Why are food chains relatively short?

Answer 19

Because an enormous amount of energy is lost at each level.

Question 20

How much energy is lost with each step in the food chain.

Answer 20

90%

Question 21

Define richness

Answer 21

Number of different species.

Diversity

Question 22

Why is monocorp farming effective.

Answer 22

We can make tools that aid in farming for that specific plant.

Question 23

How are plant diversity and animal diversity related.

Answer 23

There is a direct correlation. As plant diversity increase animal diversity increases.

Question 24

What is the difference between richness and evenness

Answer 24

Evenness relates to the distribution of species. Richness is just the number of different species.
When there are more of each species than there is more evenness.

Question 25

How are sister communities created

Answer 25

By sampling all the species in an a community and comparing them to each other, we can see how similar they are.

Question 26

How is community ecology used to fight crime

Answer 26

There is data of the microbiomes of door dust for the whole country and that is used to map the country.

Question 27

How is community ecology present in ants.

Answer 27

They farm different fungi by clipping leaves off of trees and keep their gardens clean by keeping good bacteria on their chins.