Landscaping for Habitat Vocab

Question 1

An assemblage of plants and animals

Answer 1

Community

Question 2

A measure of the degree to which landscape units are linked to one another

Answer 2

Connectivity

Question 3

Vegetation that provides places to hide, forage, rest, shelter, reproduce, and raise young

Answer 3

Cover habitat

Question 4

A relatively discrete event that disrupts the structure of an ecosystem, community, or population and changes resource availability and the physical environment: e.g., fire, flooding, or wind damage

Answer 4

Disturbance

Question 5

Meadows, old fields/pastures, shrub thickets, and young forest habitats that develop after a disturbance

Answer 5

Early successional habitat

Question 6

Areas where ecosystems (and the type, quality, and quantity of environmental resources) are generally similar

Answer 6

Ecoregion

Question 7

The transition zone between two community/habitat types

Answer 7

Ecotone

Question 8

A transitional woodland edge that mimics a natural disturbance and is more beneficial to wildlife; gradually transitions from an opening of herbaceous vegetation to woody vines and shrubs, to small trees, and finally large trees

Answer 8

Edge, feathered

Question 9

A blunt woodland edge that goes from open habitat to mature forest; can be detrimental to wildlife and are unnatural constructs of human-managed landscapes

Answer 9

Edge, hard

Question 10

Masses of flowers in bloom that provide high quality forage habitat for pollinators in a concentrated area

Answer 10

Floral concentration

Question 11

Sources of nectar and pollen (forage for pollinators)

Answer 11

Floral resources

Question 12

Species focused on to meet planning objectives; usually declining species that are of greatest conservation need; most sensitive to a range of threats

Answer 12

Focal species

Question 13

An herbaceous plant that is not a grass; includes annual, biennial, and perennial flowers

Answer 13

Forb

Question 14

Process by which relatively large and contiguously habitats are divided into smaller, isolated patches

Answer 14

Fragmentation (habitat fragmentation)

Question 15

An organism that uses a variety of food and habitat resources

Answer 15

Generalist

Question 16

Removing a wide strip of inner and outer bark around the trunk of a standing tree/shrub and leaving it to die/decay

Answer 16

Girdling (a tree)

Question 17

Low plants that spread to form a carpet or mat of vegetation

Answer 17

Groundcovers

Question 18

An intentional, cultivated space designed to benefit wildlife; can be of any scale and include wooded areas as well as herbaceous

Answer 18

Habitat garden

Question 19

Non-woody, includes grasses, sedges and forbs

Answer 19

Herbaceous

Question 20

A plant that is needed by butterflies and moths (and other insects) to complete their life cycle

Answer 20

Host plant (larval)

Question 21

An established non-native species that is spreading with negative impacts

Answer 21

Invasive

Question 22

Native plants critical to the food web and necessary for many wildlife species to complete their life cycle

Answer 22

Keystone plants

Question 23

Fruits, nuts, and seeds produced by woody plants; nutritionally important source of food for wildlife; soft mast (berries); hard mast (nuts,acorns)

Answer 23

Mast

Question 24

Native cultivar - can by hybrids, products of 2 or more plants intentionally selected by breeders and crossed to create desirable traits

Answer 24

Nativar

Question 25

A species unlikely to have arrived without human assistance

Answer 25

Non-native

Question 26

Early successional plants - mosses, grasses, sedges, wildflowers, fast growing shrubs and trees

Answer 26

Pioneers or colonizers

Question 27

To generally protect, favor and encourage the growth of an individual plant or species

Answer 27

Promote

Question 28

A techniques of removing, or cutting back, nearby to ‘release’ the desirable plant from crowding, shading and competition for nutrients and sunlight; will improve the selected plant’s ability to flower, grow, and produce fruit/nuts/seeds

Answer 28

Release

Question 29

An ecosystem response to a disturbance where a landscape bounces back, maintains function over time; some structure or species composition change

Answer 29

Resilience

Question 30

An organism that uses only specific food and habitat resurces

Answer 30

Specialist

Question 31

Nest boxes, dens, snags, downed logs and perches, water, feeders, rock piles, brush piles, layers of vegetation that wildlife use

Answer 31

Structural habitat components

Question 32

Arrangement of plant communities across the landscape

Answer 32

Structure, horizontal (Horizontal structure)

Question 33

How the layers are arranged in a plant community

Answer 33

Structure, vertical (Vertical structure)

Question 34

How natural communities change over time

Answer 34

Succession

Question 35

Live or partially dead trees with cavities

Answer 35

Live cavity tree

Question 36

Dead or partially dead standing trees

Answer 36

Snag tree