JD L7

Question 1

Anthropocene

Answer 1

The current geological age, viewed as the period during which human activity has been the dominant influence on climate and the environment

Question 2

Global environmental change addresses?

Answer 2

Large-scale chemical, biological, geological and physical perturbations of the earth’s surface, ocean, land surface and hydrologic cycle with special attention to time scales of decades to centuries to human-caused perturbations and their impacts on society

Question 3

Biotic interactions in the anthropocene

Answer 3

• Biodiversity loss
• Invase species
• Climate change

Question 4

Biodiversity loss

Answer 4

Reduction in abundance, extirpation, extinction.
Extirpation- local extinction

Question 5

Principal drivers of biodiversity loss

Answer 5

• Habitat loss
• Overexploitation

Question 6

What is habitat loss

Answer 6

The permanent conversion of former habitat to an area where that species can no longer exist.

Question 7

How can habitat loss occur?

Answer 7

• Destruction
• Fragmentation
• Degradation

Question 8

What is overexploitation

Answer 8

Depletion of numbers through harvesting of individuals

Question 9

How does habitat loss impact biotic interactions?

Answer 9

By reducing species abundances and driving local extinctions, habitat loss can alter competitive interactions, predation, and mutualistic relationships between species

Question 10

Overexploitation leads to what ecological phenomenon?

Answer 10

Trophic cascade

Question 11

What is trophic cascade

Answer 11

It is an ecological phenomenon triggered by the addition or removal of top predators and involving reciprocal changes in the relative populations of predator and prey through a food chain, which often results in dramatic changes in ecosystem structure and nutrient cycling

Question 12

Invasive alien species

Answer 12

An introduced species which becomes established in natural or semi-natural ecosystem or habit, is an agent of change and threatens native biological diversity.

Question 13

Impact of invasive species

Answer 13

They can have significant environmental, economic and human health impacts

Question 14

What is a fundamental niche?

Answer 14

The physiologically optimal range of conditions where a species can survive

Question 15

What is the realized niche of an organism?

Answer 15

Where the species actually lives

Question 16

Enemy release hypothesis

Answer 16

Invasive species, on introduction to a new region, experience a decrease in regulation by natural enemies resulting in a rapid increase in distribution and abundance

Question 17

Impact of ornamental gardening

Answer 17

• Alters habitat, reduces diversity
• Winter dieback makes riparian areas vulnerable to erosion
• Can cause damage to property

Question 18

Predator invasion success may be attributed to?

Answer 18

• Prey naivete
• Absence of anti-predator behavior between native and non- native species

Question 19

What is prey naivete

Answer 19

Failure of prey to recognize predators as threat.

Question 20

Climate change can result in changes in species phenology sometimes causing what?

Answer 20

Trophic mismatches

Question 21

Climate induced range shifts can result in?

Answer 21

Spatial mismatches in the distribution of interacting species

Question 22

Examples of spatial mismatches

Answer 22

Bark beetles encounter naive hosts at their expanding range edge increasing population growth

Question 23

Competitive dominance

Answer 23

Climate change will favor species able to tolerate warmer and more variable climatic conditions resulting in a relative increase in their performance

Question 24

How are competitive interactions altered?

Answer 24

By changes in dominance of plant and animal species

Question 25

The invasiveness of introduced non-native species is regulated by what biotic interactions?

Answer 25

• Vacant niches
• Enemy release
• Prey naivete