Ecology Exam 2

Question 1

How does competition affect biodiversity?

Answer 1

Limiting the number of species that can be packed into a given niche

Question 2

Intraspecific competition

Answer 2

Competition within the species for food, mates, etc.

Question 3

interspecific competition

Answer 3

Competition between members of different species

Question 4

Exploitation competition

Answer 4

limited food or space

Question 5

mutual interference

Answer 5

direct aggression, toxic waste products

Question 6

Apparent competition

Answer 6

increase in common predator or parasite population

Question 7

Guild

Answer 7

a group of species that exploit a common resource base in similar fashion

Question 8

Fundamental niche

Answer 8

a species niche in the absence of competition, conditions where it can survive and reproduce

Question 9

Realized niche

Answer 9

A species niche with competition

Question 10

Avoiding competition

Answer 10

Avoid character displacement, on either behavioral or ecological time scale

Question 11

Character displacement

Answer 11

when two species inhibit the same environment

Question 12

Keystone predation

Answer 12

predation increases biodiversity if it removes species that would otherwise competitively exclude other species

Question 13

Keystone species

Answer 13

a single or (few) species within a community who’s presence or absence affects the community

Question 14

Dominant species

Answer 14

species that have a high population density, biomass density within a community.

Question 15

Low disturbance rate

Answer 15

The competitively dominant species takes over and excludes other species

Question 16

High disturbance rate

Answer 16

Everyone gets clobbered, rarely any species survive.

Question 17

Mechanisms behind biodiversity

Answer 17

Evolutionary process
ecological process

Question 18

Ecological process

Answer 18

competition
predation
spatial patchiness + disturbance
colonization + extinction

Question 19

Similarities of habitat patches and islands

Answer 19

small units of land separated by similar units of barrier.

Question 20

Differences of habitat patches and islands

Answer 20

How much of a barrier does the intervening land represent?
- Isolated from what? Where is the ‘source’ population?
- Time
- how long has the patch been isolated

Question 21

Habitat islands

Answer 21

Areas that are not true islands, but can be considered for island biogeography therom
-Mountain
-caves

Question 22

Species area curve

Answer 22

number of species on patch or island increases as space increases

Question 23

Island biogeography

Answer 23

species diversity on islands as a dynamic balance between colonizations and extinctions

Question 24

Habitat fragmentation

Answer 24

The process of fracturing a formerly continuous island landscape into smaller and often isolated pieces.

Question 25

Possible effects of habitat fragmentation

Answer 25

Isolation, road mortality, and edge effects

Question 26

Edge effect

Answer 26

the noticeable changes in population or community structure that occur at the boundary between two different habitats

higher diversity

Question 27

undisturbed nucleus

Answer 27

high biodiversity, large gene pools

Question 28

Risk of extinction concerns

Answer 28

spatial uncertainty
In discrete habitat patches

Question 29

Landscape approach

Answer 29

landscape
modeling- spatially explicit models

Question 30

Landscape

Answer 30

A mosaic of habitat patches across which organisms move, settle, reproduce, and eventually die.
usually heterogenous

Question 31

Modeling - spatially explicit models must

Answer 31

Incorporate habitat heterogeneity and patchy distributions
-Depict landscape structure and population demography

Question 32

What determines community structure

Answer 32

individualistic, holistic, and intermediate hypothesis

Question 33

individualistic hypothesis

Answer 33

change assemblage
abiotic factors
communities lack discrete geographical boundaries

Question 34

Holistic hypothesis

Answer 34

assemblage of linked species,
biotic interactions,
discrete communities with distinct boundaries

Question 35

intermediate hypothesis

Answer 35

aspects of holistic and individualistic
population is a unit of evolution*
many species affect each other’s evolution*
manifests as community properties

Question 36

Ecosystem hypothesis

Answer 36

land use patterns
resource management

Question 37

conservation of biology

Answer 37

habitat fragmentation
preserve design