Ecological Scales Flashcards
What does an environment contain?
Multiple species, temperature, rainfall, nitrogen, carbon etc
What is organismal ecology?
The behavioural, physiological and morphological traits that mediate interactions among individuals, between species and with the environment
What is a population?
A group of individuals of the same species living and interacting in a particular geographic area
What is population ecology?
Examines factors that limit and regulate population size and composition
What is a community?
Consists of all the individuals of all the species that inhabit a particular geographic area
What is community ecology?
Examines interactions among populations, and how factors such as predation, competition, disease, and environmental factors affect community structure and organisation
What does ecology look at?
Behaviour, physiology, morphology
Life cycles and life history - the schedule of birth and death
Population size and stability
Interactions with other species and the environment
What are the 6 key processes that drive distribution and abundance?
Cause an increase = colonisation, immigration, birth
Cause a decrease = extinction, emigration, death
What is population growth rate?
Change in numbers / change in time
When is equilibrium reached?
When there is a balance between the different processes that increase or decrease the populations
What happens to population growth rate when density increases?
Increasing the number of individuals will decrease the birth rate
More competition for food - so there may be less reproduction
Starvation so death rate would increase
