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Final Material Flashcards

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1
Q

What is a community?

A

an assemblage of interacting species inhabiting a defined area at a given time, consists of many species and is impacted by interactions between them and features of the environment

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2
Q

What is more diverse the boreal forest or the coral reef?

A

The coral reef

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3
Q

What factors influence community structure?

A

richness of a species, number of species, and relative abundance of species

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4
Q

Define biodiversity

A

Diversity in genotype structure of communities, species diversity, and ecosystem diversity and organization

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5
Q

What are the two components that make up biodiversity?

A

Species richness, so number of species found in a community (hard to count)
and species evenness- so relative abundance of the different species w in a community

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6
Q

More even communities are more?

A

diverse

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7
Q

What is species evenness based on?

A

is based on the relative abundance of species, ie how many of each specie is present

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8
Q

What is dominance?

A

Is the opposite of species evenness, a community with high evenness is one w out a dominant species

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9
Q

Say you have a two communties with two species each, one has 5 green trees and 1 red tree, the other has 3 green trees and 3 red trees, which one is more diverse? more even?

A

The second as it has more evenness so is therefore more rich

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10
Q

What are rank abundance curves?

A

Curves that are used to assess both species richness and evenness

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11
Q

What is the shannon index?

A

Quantifies the diversity of a community

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12
Q

When does the shannon index equal 0?

A

When we only have one species

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13
Q

What is pielous evenness index?

A

J= H’/Hmax

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14
Q

What is H max in pielous evenness index?

A

is the max value of the shannon index for a community of this size that is completely even

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15
Q

What is prestons lognormal distribution?

A

plotted log2 of species abundance vs number of species in the abundace intervals to find that a lognormal distribution for species consistently happened.

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16
Q

What is prestons veil line?

A

the theoretical species abundance below which species are not represented in the sample due to their low abundance

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17
Q

What does prestons method require?

A

intense sampling to get rare species.

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18
Q

What are the implications of the distribution abundance relationship?

A

Widespread species are likely to occur at high densities, species that can’t distribute usually have low density

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19
Q

Why is there a positive distribution abundance relationship?

A

Because larger populations produce more offpsring which increase their chnace to disperse and because of niche differences- as in species at high density are more tolerant to the environmental conditions (the niche) and therefore can occupy spaces across a wide range.

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20
Q

L30 Define biological resources?

A

products we harvest from nature​

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21
Q

Define ecosystem functions?

A

ecological processes that control fluxes of energy, nutrients, and organic matter through the environment​

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22
Q

Define ecosystem services?

A

a process provided by nature that support human life​

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23
Q

What are some natural causes of biodiversity decline?

A

Small population size​

​

Competition​

Predation​

Parasitism​

​

Natural selection​

Environmental stochasticity​

Habitat loss​

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24
Q

What are the major anthropogenic factors that contribute to biodiversity decline?

A

Land use changes/Habitat loss: particularly for agriculture, logging, residential and commercial development ​

Exotic species invasions: competitive exclusion due to introduction of invasives​

Resource overexploitation: fisheries and marine life for example​

Climate change: rapid changes in climate = physiological limits to adapt/acclimate

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25
What is ecological restoration?
Ecological restoration- for ex when we have small forest fires to reproduce growth in forests and rejuvenate them. ​
26
Why does ecosystem function and stability rely on biodiversity?
There three hypothesis 1. Sampling/selection effect- The more species we have the more likely we are to win the ecosystem lottery and have a species that’s super productive​ 2. Complementarity- diff species use resources in diff way, more biodiviersity means we might get mix of species that maximize resource sin an environment rather than a single species 3. Facilitation- similar to mutualism, by having the prescience of multiple species w can have higher success and production in species. ​
27
Whats an example of facilitation?
Having multiple species of trees help use the nutrients and resource from soil better. ​ ​ Through facilitation- relationship with microrhizae they are able to increase uptake of nutrients better. ​
28
What is functional redundancy?
when we have species that occupy the same role so it doesn’t add anything rlly
29
What is invasibility?
how easy it is for invasive species to come and take over. 
30
What is biotic resistance?
Less diverse communities might be more prone to invasions by other species,
31
Why at small scale levels does invasive plants inhibit non native ones and in large scale areas it kinda doesn’t. Why does biotic resistance not work for every spatial scale?
this is bcuz large areas can support. A lot more species and a lot more energy and resource is available to support both species. ​ WHEN YOU COPARE SAME LOCATIONS THE MORE SPECIES YOU HAVE THE HARDER IT is for species to invade but a larger scale that doesn’t hold as well. ​
32
What is a statistical avergaing effect?
That by having many species, the properties of the ecosystems become more predictable, less variation when you avergae a lot of species
33
How does biodiveristy loss effect ecosystem processes? Is this relationship linear?
Biodiveristy loss harms ecosystem processes, this is not a linear harm, a bit of loss doesn't effect much but once too much is lost it effects A LOT
34
Define a food web?
Food web = describes the feeding relationships among organisms in all or part of a community​ ​
35
what are links in a food web?
Links are connections between organisms in a food web, shows whos eating who and in what direction the energy is moving ​
36
What can you infer from links in a food web?
Can infer who’s completing w who for what, ex: if organisms are sharing a prey ​
37
Why did charles elton go to tundra to analyze food web?
Cause he wanted to analyze a simple food web with few species
38
What was the top predator on bear island and what were the primary producers? What did charles want to do with them?
top predator was polar bear, primary producers were terrestrial plants and aquatic algae, wanted to find everything in between them to build food web
39
What are primary producers, primary consumers, secondary consumers?
are plants, herbivores, and carnivores
40
What is a food web?
Summary of their feeding relationship
41
How do you create a food web?
Historically finding who ate who was used gut content analysis, opening up an animals and seeing what it ate, hard method though as it doesn’t look like what they were because they’re being processed. Hard to differentiate between organism, also caused bias bcuz we focused on bigger organisms as that’s easier to identify. ​ Use stable isotope analysis now.
42
What is something important not included in the bear island food web?
detritivores and pathogens and parasites ​
43
What are foodwebs limitations?
they don't focus on small organisms, ignore decomposers, parasites, parasitoids, and detritivores
44
Why are foodwebs useful?
Food webs let you find out which organisms are most important that if removed completely change the community ​
45
What can foodwebs tell us about trophic position?
Tells us whether species is at bottom (primary producers/basal ex plants that do photosynthesis, or are they intermediate (predator that’s is preyed on) or top predator . ​
46
What is an omnivore?
Omnivore- is when species feed on prey located at more than one tropic level (ex bear who eats berries but also rabbits)​
47
What are some repeatable patterns identified from food webs?
Relatively fixed ratio of basal, intermediate and top species​ Food chains are relatively short, usually containing no more than 5 or 6 species​ (as energy is limited by loss of energy at each level) Take a look at the flow of energy across trophic levels:​ Eg/ ​ plants  herbivores  carnivores​ Energy losses limit the number of trophic levels in a community​
48
What is the foundation of communites and trophic interactions?
primary producers
49
Why do higher levels result in energy loss?
this is because the enrgy isn't 100% moved up the levels, conversion results in loss of energy trhough respiration, feces etc, that's why we get lower biomass as we move up the levels.
50
What is bottom up regulation?
If you have more enrgy in the bottom level, you will have more in the next level, producers regulate consumers
51
What is top down regulation?
high trophic levels regulate lower ones, ex through predation, a lot of predators consume herbivores, leads to abundace of primary producers
52
What are keystone species?
Keystone species that are not abundant but have a big effect on flow of energy and the structure of the foodweb (which species are found where) ​ Dominance (high abundance) where as keystones are rare but have. A big impact​ Keystone species are usually a top predator. ​
53
What is an example of a mutualistic keystone specie?
Cleaner fishes, these take off parasites which impact fitness of fish this effects biodiversity as reefs with cleaner fish lead to a higher biodiversity.
53
What is an example of a mutualistic keystone specie?
Cleaner fishes, these take off parasites which impact fitness of fish this effects biodiversity as reefs with cleaner fish lead to a higher biodiversity.
54
L 32 What is a trophic cascade when you remove a predator?
Occur when predators limit prey abundance, and in turn enhance the survival of lower trophic level​
55
What is the minimum requirement of levels in a trophic cascade?
3
56
What is runaway herbivory?
Occurs when predators are removed or reduced
57
What are the two classes of trophic cascades?
population – overgrazing leads to local extinction of plant, but replaced with less palatable species​ ​ community – overgrazing of entire community, and large-scale loss of ecosystem function​
58
What communties are susceptible to trophic cascades?
simple and homogeneous communities are more prone to trophic cascades​ as there are not buffered by multiple predators and the primary producers are poorly defended. so predators will easily eat prey.
59
How are sea otters and kelp forests an example of trophic casacdes?
sea otters each urchins which eat kelp beds, w out sea otters kelp beds get decimated, that;s sea otters habitat so it effects their living even more
60
How are trembling aspen extinction an example of a trophic cascade?
grey wolf died, elk were free to roam, this caused them to feed a lot on aspen especially young aspen and therefore caused the decimation of aspen which is bad as many other animal relied on it in the ecosystem
61
When wolves were reintroduced to the ecosystem, why didn't aspen bounce back?
Due to interspecific competiton, bison were now feading aspen since elk were gone and conifers were using aspen land as apsen were gone. also climate chnage, as it got warmer and dryer aspen couldnt reproduce as well
61
When wolves were reintroduced to the ecosystem, why didn't aspen bounce back?
Due to interspecific competiton, bison were now feading aspen since elk were gone and conifers were using aspen land as apsen were gone. also climate chnage, as it got warmer and dryer aspen couldnt reproduce as well
62
L33 What kind of system is earth?
Earth is an open system, get energy from sun, but some energy is lost. ​
63
Can matter be lost?
Matter is not created or destroyed, it cycles.
64
What are essential nutrients?
Carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and phosphorus collectively are called essential nutrients. ​ ​ “What’s here is here”- just moves in different forms in the earths system. ​
65
What is the difference between macro and micro?
Macro nutrients are big need, micro are small need, the designation of these is diff for all organisms fro ex small ocean organisms (diatoms) have silica as a macronnutrients. ​ CHOP are macro
66
Define a biogeochemical cycle?
nutrients flow from the non-living to the living in a (more or less) cyclic path​ ​
67
What are the two major types of biogeochemical cycles?
gaseous cycles (main pool of nutrients atmospheric and oceanic), or sedimentary (where most nutrients is in soil rocks or minerals)​ ​ Water is the medium that moves elements and other materials through the ecosystem. ​
68
What is flux?
Flux is measured in nutrients per unit of time, is a rate for this reason. ​ ​
69
What is wetfall vs dryfall?
Can see nutrients linked to particles, for ex wetfall when nutrients enter system through ppt or dry fall- when nutrients are brought in by airborne particles ex wind. ​
70
What are the important biological processes of the carbon cycle?
photosynthesis and respiration
71
Is the carbon cycle gaseous or sedimentary?
Gaseous as more stored it atmosphere, no wetfall or dryfall
72
What is the human impact on the carbon cycle?
Fossil fuels

Biol 313 (4 decks)

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