Week 11 Friday

Question 1

What is Landscape Ecology?

Answer 1

• The study of land comprised of patchworks of ecosystems/communities and the structures and processes associated with them
• The science of landscape diversity as the synergetic result of biodiversity

Question 2

what are landscapes described as?

Answer 2

• heterogenous regions of interconnected sections of homogenous habitats type or geological features known as landscape elements

Question 3

what are some landscape elements?

Answer 3

• How they form and are structured
• How/when they changed
• What are the biotic ramifications of landscape change at the community-, species-, population-, or individual-level
• If and how mitigation and remediation efforts can restore processes that have been recently lost.

Question 4

what causes fundamental creation or change in structure of landscapes?

Answer 4

• geological processes
• climate
• similar to primary succession disturbances

Question 5

what causes derived creation or change in structure of landscapes?

Answer 5

• biotic factors
• secondary succession disturbances

Question 6

what is glaciation?

Answer 6

Global climate cycling leads to the formation and expansion, and contraction, of continental ice sheets

Question 7

what are natural drivers? (at a local scale)

Answer 7

• Abiotic like the regularity of fires
• Biotic like ecosystem engineers

Question 8

What is an Anthropogenic driver on a local scale?

Answer 8

• All the many things we do

Question 9

what are ecosystem engineers?

Answer 9

A form of keystone species (they function differently than predators)

Question 10

What do ecosystem engineers do?

Answer 10

They modify their environment in a significant manner, creating new habitats or modifying existing ones to suit their needs

Question 11

How do ecosystem engineers affect others?

Answer 11

By providing and maintaining microhabitats that would not otherwise exist

Question 12

what is landscape structure?

Answer 12

The size, shape, composition, number, and position of landscape elements

Question 13

what is a patch?

Answer 13

a relatively homogenous area of a landscape that form the mosaic

Question 13

what is a matrix?

Answer 13

the landscapes that exist ubiquitously between the patches, like the backround

Question 13

what is habitat fragmentation?

Answer 13

the subdividing of larger patches into smaller one

Question 14

what causes habitat fragmentation?

Answer 14

• can happen naturally
• commonly now because of people

Question 15

what happens when fragmentation increases?

Answer 15

leads to a shift in perimeter : area ratio, which increases the amount of edge habitat

Question 16

what is habitat connectivity?

Answer 16

the degree to which separate patches of habitat are connected. Greater habitat connectivity means animals are able to travel between these patches

Question 17

what can corridors be used for?

Answer 17

• connect patches of habitat, increasing connectivity
• they facilitate animal migration and movement, which enables gene exchange