LECTURE TWO WHAT IS COMMUNITY_POPULATION ECOLOGY

Question 1

What is community/ population ecology?

Question 2

1. How did such a variety of life arise?
2. How is it all maintained?
3. What would happen if it were lost?

Question 3

What is COMMUNITY/POPULATION ECOLOGY?

Answer 3

A branch of science focused on understanding Earth’s biodiversity, including the generation, maintenance and distribution of the diversity of life in space and time.
- Species interact with one another and their environment – these
interactions underlie the processes that determine biodiversity
- BUT: Species and their interactions change through time “EVOLVE”.
This transience or continual change makes the study of interacting species more challenging.

Question 4

What is a community?

Answer 4

A group of species that occur together in space and time
NOTE:
(i) The definition is an operational one”
(ii) Limits on space and time are arbitrary
(iii) Limits on number of species are arbitrary

RECOGNIZE: it’s impossible to to study all the species that occur together
in the same place at the same time.
While the above is a good definition – there is debate over the concept of
what a community is and how it is organized…this definition has and is
changing over time

Question 5

What’s the difference between primary and secondary succession?