Plant Demography Flashcards

Vocabulary flashcards for plant demography lecture review.

Density

Number of individuals per area.

Genet

Plant tissue arising from a single seed.

Ramet

Individual stem vegetatively derived from parent; a clone.

Indeterminate Growth

Plant growth that continues throughout its lifetime.

L-shaped distribution

Typical frequency distribution of a natural plant population: Many small individuals, few large ones.

Discrete-time models

Predict number of plants at a specific time in the future.

Continuous-time models

Express birth & death processes as rates.

r (rate of population increase)

b-d (birth rate minus death rate).

Carrying Capacity (K)

Maximum number of individuals an environment can support.

Verhulst-Pearl equations

dN/dt= rN(1-N/K), or alternatively, dN/dt= rN(K-N/K)

Law of constant yield

At maturity, yields (total biomass) were constant across a wide range of plant densities.

Self Thinning Rule

Describes density/ Biomass interactions where large plants utilize most resources causing mortality among smaller plants.

Survivorship Curves

Derived from life tables by plotting survivors & time to demonstrate mortality patterns.

Metapopulation

Interactions of individual populations with other (semi-isolated) populations of a species.