Use LEFT and RIGHT arrow keys to navigate between flashcards;
Use UP and DOWN arrow keys to flip the card;
H to show hint;
A reads text to speech;
42 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
|
Plant functional group |
Plants with similar physiological and anatomical characteristics that influence their seasonality, resource requirments, and life histories. Example legumes all fixing nitrogen. |
|
|
Diveristy and production |
The more diverse a functional group, the more primary production occurs. A study found that an area with more diverse algeal species had increased production. Same thing was found with trees. |
|
|
Bottom up and top down controls |
Bottom: influence of physical and chemical factors such as temperature and nutrients on trophic levels. Top: influence of consumers. |
|
|
Trophic cascade |
Effects of predators on prey that alter abundance, biomass, and productivity of a population or trophic level across more than one link in the food web. |
|
|
Green world hypothesis |
The balance between predators and prey allows for plant life to survive and keep the world green. Think of the yellowstone wolves. |
|
|
Difference between nuetrient and energy flow |
Energy makes a one eay trip through the ecosystem. Nuetrients are transformed, moved, and recycled through and envrionment. |
|
|
Active versus sequestered |
Active:fluxs often, rapid movement between organisms and environment Sequestered: stays in unavailable form for long time, carbon in soils, peat, fossil fuels, etc. |
|
|
Succession |
The change in plant, animal, and microbial communities in an area following a disturbance or the creation of a new substrate. Succession differs from other form in community change in that it results results in a completely new begining for the area. |
|
|
Primary and secondary succession |
Primary: occurs on newly exposed geological substrate, example volcano creating new soil with lava Secondary: everything is destroyed exceot soil, example forest fire |
|
|
Seral stage, pioneer community, and climax community |
Seral: the intermediate stage found in succsesion leading to the climax community Pioneer: the first organisms to colonize in a succesional sequence Climax: the late successional community that can persist until a disturbance |
|
|
Species richness and succesional change |
Increases rapidly and then plateaus near the end |
|
|
Facilitation, tolerance, and inhibition |
Facilitation: pioneer species colonize a new area and over time make the area more adept for other species and less adept for themselves Tolerance: initial stages of colonization are not limited to a few pioneer species. Early species do not make the environment better for late successional, they are simply tolersnt enough to move it. Inhibition: early inhabitants modify the environment so that it is worse for both late and early species. Late species invade when a disturbance opens up an area from the earlt colonists. |
|
|
Permenant plot vs. Chronosequence |
Permenant plot: same plot or area studied over time Chronosequence: different areas of land srudied at the same time meant to signify different time periods (glacier bay) |
|
|
Landscape |
Heterogeneous area consisting of distinctive patches organized intoa mosaic like pattern. |
|
|
Compositional heterogenity and configurational |
Compositional: different types of thing located Configurational: heterogenity of the spacing of the thing measured |
|
|
Previous theories effect on habitat fragmentation |
Meta populations: could result in some species persisting Island biogeography: larger and less isolated the patches, the less extinctions and more immigration Species area curve: The larger the area, the greater diversity of the species |
|
|
Glanville Butterfly |
Total population size increased with area. Population density decreased. Exitinction and colonization occured mostly in smaller patches with smaller populations. More isolated patches had lower densities. |
|
|
Island biogeography |
Greater size leads to less extinction, less isolation leads to more immigration. And equalibrium is reached on all islands. Example is study with birds in pacific islands. |
|
|
Islands |
Can be either land seperated from land by water, water seperated by water by land (lakes), or something like mountain tops |
|
|
Turnover |
Change in species composition over time due to immigration and extinction. |
|
|
Refinements of island biogeography theory. |
Increased size can also lead to increased immigration. Species richness is also not in equalibrium on a lot of islands and is also affected by speciation as well as area and location. |
|
|
Latitudinal biodiversity gradient |
There is increased species diversity in the tropics. There are six major theories behind this. 1. Time since perturbation, the tropics are older and are disturbed less 2. Productivity, high productivity of the tropics leads to high diversity 3. Environmental heterogeneity, the tropics are more heterogenous 4. Favorableness, the tropics have a more favorable and steady temperature 5. Niche breadths and interspecific interactions, tropical species are affected more by competition between other species than by their own species and have narrower and more niches 6. Differences in speciation and extinction rate, the tropics have more speciation and less extinction |
|
|
Habitat destruction and fragmentation |
Destroys niches, increases edge effects, lowers overall area, decreases immegration, etc. Usually this reduces diversity more with fragmentations but in some niche situations can help. |
|
|
What do ice cores tell us about co2? |
Levels of co2 have been rising exponentially since humans became ondutrialized. |
|
|
Evidence for rises in human co2 concentrations |
During major world events fheir is a decrease in co2 levels |
|
|
What is a limiting nuetrient? |
The nuetrient that is restricting further growth of a population or organism |
|
|
Assimilatory and dissimilatory processes |
Assimilatory: transformation of elements from inorganic to organic (photosynthesis) Dissimilatory: organic to inorganic (respiration, decomposition) |
|
|
Law of the minimum |
The limiting nuetrient will control the amount of biomass yeilded from a crop or organism |
|
|
Decomposition, mineralization, immobilization |
Decomposition: beeakdown of organic matter. Releases co2 and other inorganic compounds. Mineralization: conversion of nietrients from organic to inorganic forms Immobilization: uptake of inorgnic N by bacteria or fungi |
|
|
Nitrification and denitrification |
Nitri: conversion of ammonium to nitrate by chemosynthetic bacteria Denitr: conversion of nitrate to atmospheric dinitrogen carried out by anaerobic bacteria |
|
|
Leaf litter bags |
Used to measure rates of decomposition in an area. The amount of mass lost corresponds to the decomposition. Decomposition is higher where evapotransperation is higher, lignin is low, and low c:n ratio |
|
|
Deforestation affect on nuetrient loss |
Lack of plants means nuetrients are not taken up and can be lost as run off from streams. From here they are lost from the environment and taken to a place where they can now be im excess such as water pools. |
|
|
El nino la nina |
El nino: off west coast of s america warmer temp, lower pressure, more rainfall, lowers levels of fish, hurts sea lions. Opposite affect near austrailia and asia. La nina: little rain, cool water, high pressure. Opposite near australia/asia. |
|
|
Major pools and fluxs |
Nitrogen: atmosphere to fixing by bacteria and lightning to plants to ammonia to nitrite to nitratd to anerobic bacteria to atmosohere Carbon: atmosphere to producers to consumers to detrivore to atmosphere Phosphorus: well |
|
|
Limiting factors for terrestrial and aquatic environments |
Terrestrial and marine: nitrogen Freshwater: phosphorus |
|
|
Southern oscillstion index |
Measures severity and timing of el nino and la nina |
|
|
Major landscape elements |
Heterogeneity, size to area, comlosition |
|
|
Extinction debt |
Species that do not immedietly go extint but will because of habitat destruction |
|
|
Initial floristics model |
All types of species present at beginning, first most abundsnt is grow fast live short, then grow slove live long (growth rate and longevity) |
|
|
Competition dispersal model |
First soecies good at dispersal, second good at competition |
|
|
NDVI |
Measures environmental changes across the globe and can be used to estimate future events |
|
|
Things that affect a microclimate |
Color of grouod, topography, ground composition |
