lec 13- community structure

Question 1

what is an alternative way to describe communities?

Answer 1

food webs

Question 2

what are the types of food webs?

Answer 2

1. connectedness
2. energy flow (most energy gained from prey)
3. functional or interaction (influence of populations on growth rate in other populations)

Question 3

what do keystone predators help with and what occurs when they are absent?

Answer 3

keystone predators help with species abundance as they maintain prey species, if they are absent the community will shift to competitive dominant species

Question 4

do keystone predators have to be abundant?

Answer 4

No

Question 5

what is omnivory?

Answer 5

a species that feeds at multiple trophic levels

Question 6

what is the determining factor of bottom-up and top-down control on community structure?

Answer 6

bottom-up is determined by productivity of producers, top-down is determined by predation

Question 7

how is the diversity of a community measured?

Answer 7

species richness and species diversity

Question 8

how is species richness determined?

Answer 8

the number of different species in a community

Question 9

how is species diversity determined

Answer 9

by the relative abundance of species