Textbook: Chapter 20 - Landscape Dynamics Flashcards
Border
The place where the edge of one vegetation patch meets the edge of another
Corridor
A strip of a particular type of vegetation that differs from the land on both sides
Disturbance
A discrete event in time that disrupts an ecosystem, community, or population, changing substrates and resource availability
Edge effect
Response of organisms, animals in particular, to environmental conditions created by the edge
ecotone
Transition zone between two strucutrally different communities; wide borders that form a transitition zone between adjoining patches
Edge species
Species that are restricted exclusively to the edge or border environment
Functional connectivity
The degree to which the landscape facilitates the movement of organisms
Frequency
In landscape ecology, the mean number of disturbances that ccur within a time interval. In community ecology, then proportion of ample plots in whic a species occurs relative to the total number of sample plots; the probability of finding the spcies in any one sample plot
Filter effect
Corridors taht provide dispersal routes for some species but restrict the movement of others
Gap
Opening made in a forest canopy by some small disturbance such as windfall; death of an inidivudal tree or group of trees that influecnes the development of vegetation beneath
Intensity
A measure of the proportion of the totla biomass or population of a spccies that a disturbance kills or eliminates
Interior species
Organisms that require large areas of habitat, even though their home ranges may be small
Landscape connectivity
Degree to which the landscape facilitates or impedes the movement of organisms among patches; comprised of functional and structural connectivity
Landscape ecology
Study of structure, function and change in a heterogenous landscape composed of interacting ecosystems
Matrix
The communities that surround a patch on the alndscape