Community Ecology Flashcards
What are the 3 levels Organisms interact with the environment?
- Individual
- Population
- Community
What is a community?
A community is a set of species occurring at a specific place.
What are the 2 ways communities can be characterized?
- Species richness+species assemblage
- Inter Specific interactions
What are interspecific interactions?
A set of interactions between species.
What is species richness?
How many species
What is species assemblage?
Which species
What is interspecific competition?
Negative effect one species has on another when two species attempt to use the same resource and there is not enough to satisfy both.
What is interference competition?
Physical interactions over access to resources, typically leading to displacement of one species.
What is exploitative competition?
Consuming the same resources.
What is the competitive exclusion principle?
No two species can occupy the same niche indefinitely when resources are limiting.
What is competitive exclusion?
If two species are competing for a limited resource, the species that uses the resource more efficiently will eventually eliminate the other locally.
What is a Niche?
The total of all the ways an organism uses its environment.
What is a fundamental niche?
The entire niche that a species is capable of using, based on physiological tolerances, limits, and resource needs.
What is a realized niche?
Actual set of environmental conditions in which species can establish a stable population.
What are 3 ways a niche may be restricted?
- Presence/absence of other species (competition)
- Predator absence/presence
- Absence of pollinators
Competition between species for resources can lead to ?
- Resource partitioning (behavioral adjustments)
- Character displacement (evolutionary adjustment)
What is predation?
Consuming of one organism by another.
Insects and other animals that are poisonous use what coloration?
Warning coloration
Non-poisonous animals may have what kind of coloration that helps them blend into surrounding?
Cryptic Coloration
What is mimicry?
Allows one species to capitalize on the defensive strategies of another.
What is Batesian mimicry?
Mimics look like distasteful species.
What is mullerian mimicry?
Several unrelated but poisonous species come to resemble one another.
What is parasitism?
Exploitation where one species benefits at the expense of another.
What are Ectoparasites?
Feed on exterior surface of an organism.
What are parasitoids?
Insects that lay eggs on living hosts.
What are Endoparasites?
They live in the host.
What is commensalism?
Interaction in which one species benefits and the other is unaffected.
What are epiphytes?
Plants that grow on the branches of other plants.
What is mutualism?
An interaction that benefits both species.
What is a keystone species?
Species whose effects on composition of communities are greater than one would expect based on their abundance.
What is succession?
Predictable series of changes in a community after a disturbance.
What is disturbance?
Disruption of a community, typically through a removal of biomass.
What is primary succession?
Begins on bare, lifeless substrate
What is secondary succession?
Where an existing community has been disturbed but organisms still remain.
What is establishment?
Arrival of weedy, r-selected species, tolerant of harsh conditions.
What is facilitation?
Early successional species introduce local changes to the habitat, k-selected species replace r-selected species.
What is inhibition?
Later species inhibit early species and ultimately replace them entirely.
What are the 3 stages of succession?
- Establishment
- Facilitation
- Inhibition
What is the intermediate disturbance hypothesis?
Communities experiencing moderate amounts of disturbance have higher species richness than those experiencing more or less disturbance.
