Definitions Flashcards
Standing dead trees are
Snags
Dead wood on the forest floor is
Woody debris
What are the big four impacts?
- Habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation
- Invasive species and diseases
- Over-exploitation (extraction, fishing etc)
- Climate change
Practical ecology process… (10)
- Identify the environmental issue
- Formulation of question
- Identification of required data
- Field technique and sampling regime
- Create proforma
- Data collection
- Data management
- Data analysis
- Data interpretation and evaluation
- Data reporting
What is science? (3)
- Describe
- Understand
- Predict
= inform and evaluate conservation actions, what happens if management changes
Audits provide information for… (3)
- Conservation action
- Policy development
- Socio-economic planning
Ecology is… (definition)
The scientific study of the distribution and abundance of organisms and the interactions that determine that distribution and abundance
Common science issues (5)
- Agenda and bias
- Funding
- Uncertainty
- Capacity
- Application (when to act)
A survey is…
species that are there – a species list
A census is…
how many are there – counts / density measures
Monitoring is…
repeating the census / resampling – describing the changes over time
Surveillance is…
has a specific aim - the maintenance of a species at the designated level and surveillance would be checking if its still there in its designated form / does it remain
A biodiversity audit… (5)
- Collation of key species information
- Assessment of diversity
- Understanding of landscape: contexts and impacts
- Recommendations
- Assessment of site ‘value’
The purpose of a biodiversity audit is to make a… (7)
- Species list (site & wider landscape)
- Species census
- Species/habitat distribution and site use
- Condition assessment - benchmarking = within and between sites
- Evaluation of management actions
- Identification of change
- Evaluation of landscape function (connectivity, flood control, etc)
What is the ultimate purpose of an audit?
Value
What is ‘value’ of a site? (2)
- it is subjective depending on the stakeholder
- Site level, immediate area, county, region etc
A sample regime is… (4)
what, where, when, how many
The question dictates what you measure in the field… (6)
- Abundance or density (or both)
- Extent or distribution
- Spatial Pattern or habitat Use
- Productivity or survival
- Habitat composition or configuration
- Species richness or diversity
Four key types of data…
- Nominal scale data
- Ordinal scale data
- Interval scale data
- Ratio scale data
Nominal scale is…
Classifying samples into mutually exclusive categories
- Taxonomic groups such as Coleoptera, Collembola & Diptera
- Habitat groups such as forest, grassland & urban
- Male or female
- Colour groups
Ordinal scale is…
Placing mutually exclusive categories into rank order
- The DAFOR scale of abundance
- levels of precipitation
Interval and Ratio scale measurements are…
Placing observations (measurements) into rank order and saying how far apart they are.
Example without absolute zero (interval)
Temperature (Celsius)
Examples with absolute zero (ratio)
Length
Weight
The definition of random…
An equal chance of being selected.
The core sampling regime questions… (5)
- Where from
- How many
- What size
- Duration - time spent on a quadrat
- When (within days and between days/months)
Random sampling is…
Randomly placed within boundary
Stratified random sampling is…
Random within strata
Regular grid sampling is
Regularly spaced sample points based on imposed grid
Random grid sampling
Randomly placed samples within cells of imposed grid
Ecological gradients… (7)
- Temperature
- pH
- Risk of predation gradient – a biotic gradient
- Horizontal branches – if you are a lichen then this could be a gradient
- Slope
- Ecotones
- Tree lines changing up a mountain
What are the two choices for gradients?
- measure across the gradient - up the slope
- measure a control for gradient - across the slope
What are the four core considerations for data collection (sampling)?
- Accuracy
- Precision
- Bias
- Error
Accuracy is…
how close your result is to the actual measurement
Precision is…
the degree of measurement.
i.e measuring a bench in Km it would be 0 so accuracy would be correct, but precision would be low.
Bias is…
where an individual doesn’t have an equal chance of being seen. A bright coloured bird would have a bias towards being seen
Error is…
making a mistake i.e writing a 5 digit code down wrong, so have 5 boxes one for each number so you don’t miss one out
Three ways to record your records are…
- Proforma
- Notebook
- Digital capture
Independent samples are…
Behavioural independence or spatial independence so they don’t effect each other
project management is…
A planning and management process that allows an individual (or team) to achieve a pre-defined set of project goals within external constraints.
It involves optimising the allocation of skills and resources to deliver outputs and achieve outcomes.
Project constraints can be… (5)
- Scope
- Time
- Capacity
- Budget
- Stochastic events
NVC classification is a?
Classification with standardised descriptions of named and
systematically-arranged plant communities
NVC method is… (
choosing representative quadrats located in stands of vegetation judged by eye to be homogeneous in floristics and structure
recorded using the Domin scale
The Phase 1 Habitat Survey methodology was developed to provide a…
relatively rapid system for recording
wildlife habitats and semi-natural
vegetation over large areas of countryside
NVC it has become the
standard for terrestrial Phase 2 survey
NVC is used to produce….
inventories and maps of plant communities on designated or threatened sites.
Taxonomic order
Domain
Kingdom
Phylum
Class
Order
Family
Genus
Species
Species richness
number of species present in an area / sample
Diversity
relative abundance within or between groups / samples
