chapter 4 vocab
Terms
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- Ecotone
- a boundary between two types of ecological communities
- Keystone species
- a species whose impact on its community or ecosystem are much larger and more influential than would be expected from mere abundance
- Secondary succession
- succession on a site where an existing community has been disrupted
- Primary productivity
- synthesis of organic materials by green plants using the energy captured in photosynthesis
- Ecological development
- a gradual process of environmental modification by organisms
- Symbiosis
- the intimate living together of members of two different species; includes mutualism commensalisms and in some classification parasitism
- Fire-climax communities
- an equilibrium community maintained by periodic fires; examples include grasslands chaparral shrub land and some pine forests
- Batesian mimicry
- evolution by one species to resemble the coloration body shape or behavior of another species that is protected from predators by a venomous stinger bad taste or some other defensive adaptation
- Complexity
- the number of species at each trophic level and the number of trophic levels in a community
- Parasite
- an organism that lives in or on another organism deriving nourishment at the expense of its host usually without killing it
- Ecological niche
- the functional role and position of a species (population) within a community or ecosystem including what resources it uses how and when it uses the resources and how it interacts with other populations
- Müllerian mimicry
- evolution of two species both of which are unpalatable and have poisonous stingers or some other defense mechanism to resemble each other
- Disclimax communities
- (see equilibrium community)
- Commensalisms
- a symbiotic relationship in which one member is benefited and the second is neither harmed nor benefited
- Edge effects
- a change in species composition physical conditions or other ecological factors at the boundary between two ecosystems
- Mutualism
- a symbolic relationship between individuals of two different species in which both species benefit from the association
- Natural selection
- the mechanism for evolutionary change in which environmental pressures cause certain genetic combinations in a population to become more abundant; genetic combinations best adapted fix present environmental conditions tend to become predominant
- Tolerance limits (limiting factors)
- chemical or physical factors that limit the existence growth abundance or distribution of an organism
- Evolution
- a theory that explains how random changes in genetic material and competition for scarce resources cause species to change gradually
- Coevolution
- the process in which species exert selective pressure on each other and gradually evolve new features or behaviors as a result of those pressures
- Climax community
- a relatively stable long-lasting community reached in a successional series; usually determined by climax and soil type
- Resource partitioning
- in a biological community various populations sharing environmental resources through specialization thereby reducing direct competition
- Abundance
- the number or amount of something
- Habitat
- the place or set of environmental conditions in which a particular organism lives
- Equilibrium communities
- a community subject to periodic disruptions usually by fire that prevent it from reaching a climax stage
- Interspecific competition
- in a community competition for resources between members of different species
- Diversity
- the number of species present in a community as well as the relative abundance of each species
- Pioneer species
- in primary succession on a terrestrial site the plants lichens and microbes that first colonize the site
- Intraspecific competition
- in a community competition for resources among members of the same species
- Plankton
- primarily microscopic organisms that occupy the upper water layers in both freshwater and marine ecosystems
- Territoriality
- an intense form of intraspecific competition in which organisms define an area surrounding their home site or nesting site and defend it primarily against other members of their own species
- Pathogens
- an organism that produces disease in a host organism disease being alteration of one or more metabolic functions in response to the presence of the organism
- Predator
- a organism the feeds directly on other organisms in order to survive; live-feeders such as herbivores and carnivores
- Primary succession
- an ecological succession that begins in a an area where no biotic community previously existed
- Environmental indicators
- organisms or physical factors that serve as a gauge for environmental changes. More specifically organisms with these characteristics are called bioindicators