Population and Community Ecology

A set of vocabulary flashcards reviewing key ecological principles, population growth factors, species interactions, and succession stages.

Demography

The scientific study of biological populations, encompassing the study of population size, structure, distribution, and spatial or temporal changes in response to birth, death, migration, and ageing.

Biotic Potential

The maximum reproductive capacity of a population under ideal environmental conditions, assuming resources are effectively unlimited and environmental resistance is minimal.

Environmental Resistance

All abiotic and biotic factors that prevent a population from reaching its biotic potential, restricting growth through resource limitation, mortality, and ecological interactions.

Carrying Capacity

The maximum population size that an environment can support sustainably under prevailing conditions, represented by the variable $K$ in the logistic growth equation.

Density-Independent Factors

Limiting factors, typically abiotic or catastrophic events like floods, droughts, and fires, that affect populations regardless of their size or density.

Allelopathy

A biological phenomenon in which an organism produces one or more biochemicals (allelochemicals) that influence the growth, survival, and reproduction of other organisms, reducing competition from nearby plants.

Commensalism

An ecological interaction between two organisms in which one benefits and the other derives neither benefit nor harm, living together without entering into any physiological exchange.

Epiphyte

A plant that grows upon another plant for better access to sunlight and moisture, differing from lianas by having specialized roots that absorb moisture and nutrients from humid air rather than being rooted in the soil.

Ecological Succession

The observed process of orderly and progressive replacement of species and communities in an area over a period of time until a stable climax community is formed.

Sere

The sequence of various developmental stages that an ecological community passes through in succession toward a climax community.