Final

Question 1

What is absolute abundance?

Answer 1

the number of individuals of a given species

Question 2

What is relative abundance?

Answer 2

the proportion of all individuals

Question 3

What does evenness mean?

Answer 3

how similar abundances
are among the species of the
community

Question 4

What is a diversity index?

Answer 4

a single number that
summarizes the species richness (S)
and the variation in species’ relative abundances of a community

Question 5

What is the Simpson’s diversity index?

Answer 5

Measures the “effective” number of species, Denominator is the probability that two individuals drawn randomly from the population will be of the same species

Question 6

What is the Simpson’s diversity index equation?

Answer 6

Simpson index = 1/ Σ(Pi)^2
(the sum of the squared proportions of individuals belonging to each species).

Question 7

What is the Shannon(-Wiener) diversity index?

Answer 7

Imagines sampling an individual at random from the community, measuring how hard it is to predict which species that individual will belong to

Question 8

What is the Shannon(-Wiener) diversity index equation?

Answer 8

Shannon index = -Σ(Pi)(ln(Pi))

Question 9

How does nutrients effect species richness?

Answer 9

-More nutrient additions (= high productivity) reduced richness (park grass experiment)

Question 10

What is a keystone species?

Answer 10

a species that strongly and disproportionately affects the structure of communities compared to its abundance

Question 11

what is a trophic level?

Answer 11

a level in a set of feeding relationships measured as the number of energy-transfer steps to reach that level

Question 12

What characteristics effect species diversity?

Answer 12

Resources, habitat diversity, keystone species, disturbance, area

Question 13

What is a guild?

Answer 13

a group of species that feed on similar resources within a trophic level

Question 14

What is a Density-mediated indirect effect?

Answer 14

Changes in the abundance (or density) of one species can ripple through a food web, changing the abundances of other species
(Ex: Fish eating the eggs of dragonflies that feed on pollinators, Less fish means more dragonflies and therefore less pollinators)

Question 15

What is a trait-mediated indirect effect?

Answer 15

Changes in the traits or behaviors of one species can ripple through a food web, changing the abundances of other species
(Ex: Predators can reduce herbivory without needing to eat the herbivore)

Question 16

What is a seral stage (sere)?

Answer 16

the stages communities go through in the process of succession

Question 17

What is an example of primary succession?

Answer 17

The natural
revegetation of Krakatau (Island with a very strong volcano)

Question 18

What is primary succession?

Answer 18

the development of communities on habitats without any existing plant life or organic soil

Question 19

What is secondary succession?

Answer 19

the development of communities on habitats without any existing plant life, but where there is still organic soil
(Think development after fire, storms, or plowing fields)

Question 20

How does succession impact species richness?

Answer 20

Species richness increases as species change the environment and enable even more species to establish

Question 21

What is Facilitation?

Answer 21

The presence of one species aids the establishment of another

Question 22

What is inhibition?

Answer 22

the presence of one species hinders the establishment of another

Question 23

What is Tolerance?

Answer 23

the probability of a species establishing depends on its ability to persist under the physical conditions of the environment

Question 24

What mechanisms underlie the timing of species establishment & replacement during succession

Answer 24

Facilitation, Inhibition, and Tolerance

Question 25

What is resistance in context of community stability?

Answer 25

the ability of a community to remain unchanged after a disturbance

Question 26

What is resilience in context of community stability?

Answer 26

the ability of a community to return to its previous state after a disturbance

Question 27

What is a legacy effect?

Answer 27

A long-lasting influence of a historical process on the current ecology of an area (Ex: the connection of north and south America lead to biotic exchanges over land but stop marine species from crossing over the continents)

Question 28

What is habitat fragmentation?

Answer 28

the process of breaking contiguous patches of habitat into smaller, disconnected pieces

Question 29

What is a fragment?

Answer 29

a patch of the previous habitat

Question 30

What is a matrix?

Answer 30

the area in between fragments (often not suitable habitat for species found in fragments)

Question 31

What is alpha diversity?

Answer 31

Local diversity, the number of species found in a specific, relatively homogenous location

Question 32

What is beta diversity?

Answer 32

species turnover between locations

Question 33

What is gamma diversity?

Answer 33

regional diversity, which can be at broad scales encompassing several adjacent communities to whole biomes and continents

Question 34

What is instrumental value?

Answer 34

The economic value that a species or ecosystem can provide

Question 35

What is Intangible & intrinsic value?

Answer 35

the value that a species or ecosystem can provide outside of economic exchange

Question 36

What is mass extinction?

Answer 36

a rapid, world-wide event causing >70% of species to go extinct within 2 million years

Question 37

What is the current extinction rate?

Answer 37

- 100-1,000× higher than historic average - 10-100× higher than during any of the previous mass extinction events

Question 38

What human activities are causing the loss of biodiversity

Answer 38

Habitat destruction, overharvesting, Introduced species, pollution, global climate change

Question 39

What conservation efforts are happening in the world?

Answer 39

Habitat protection, reducing harvesting, preventing species invasions, climate change policy

Question 40

What is a pool in context of the nutrient cycle?

Answer 40

a stock of the nutrient contained in biological or abiotic material

Question 41

What is flux in context of the nutrient cycle?

Answer 41

a movement between pools; happen at a rate (amount / year)

Question 42

What is residence time in context of the nutrient cycle?

Answer 42

how long a typical nutrient spends in a pool

Question 43

What is Assimilation?

Answer 43

Transfer of nutrients from a non-biological pool into a biological pool (e.g., photosynthesis capturing atmospheric carbon)

Question 44

What is Dissimilation?

Answer 44

Transfer of nutrient from a biological pool into a non-biological pool (e.g., respiration releasing carbon from organism into atmosphere)

Question 45

What is the largest pool of carbon?

Answer 45

The earths crust mainly in limestone and dolomite

Question 46

What is primary production?

Answer 46

The rate at which solar or chemical energy is captured & converted into chemical bonds

Question 47

What is Gross Primary Productivity (GPP)?

Answer 47

The rate at which energy is captured and assimilated by producers in a given area

Question 48

What is Net Primary Productivity (NPP)?

Answer 48

The rate at which energy is assimilated by producers and converted into producer biomass in a given area

Question 49

What is Terrestrial NPP limited by?

Answer 49

Temperature and Precipitation limit their NPP

Question 50

What is Aquatic NPP limited by?

Answer 50

Nutrients (nitrogen and Phosphorus) & light scarcity

Question 51

What is consumption efficiency?

Answer 51

Thee percentage of energy at a lower trophic level that is consumed by the next higher level

Question 52

What is Assimilation efficiency?

Answer 52

The percentage of consumed energy that is taken up by the consumer

Question 53

What is Net production efficiency?

Answer 53

The percentage of assimilated energy that is used for growth and reproduction

Question 54

What is ecological efficiency?

Answer 54

he percentage of net production from one trophic level compared to the next lower trophic level (a.k.a. food chain efciency) (ranges from 5-20% but 10% is used as an estimate)

Question 55

What are the steps in the nitrogen cycle? (In order)

Answer 55

1.Nitrogen fixation 2.Nitrification 3. Mineralization 4. Denitrification 5. Assimilation

Question 56

What is the Haber Process?

Answer 56

Converts N2 + 3H2 → NH3 at high heat (350– 550ºC) and pressure (150-300 atmospheres) (very importance source of nitrogen for farming)

Question 57

What are the consequences of elevated nitrogen in ecosystems?

Answer 57

Acid precipitation by NOx & Eutrophication