Wildlife Ecology and Management: Foraging, Population Dynamics, and Ecological Scale

Flashcards covering foraging theory, population growth models, r/K selection strategies, Lotka-Volterra interspecific competition, and ecological levels of organization based on lecture notes.

White Oak Group

A group of oak species characterized by acorns with rapid germination, low tannin levels, low lipid levels, and immediate consumption by wildlife, making them less adapted for animal-mediated long-term storage and dispersal.

Red Oak Group

A group of oak species characterized by acorns with delayed germination, high tannin levels, higher lipid levels, and frequent caching by wildlife, making them adapted for animal-mediated long-term storage and dispersal.

Essential Amino Acids

Amino acids that cannot be synthesized by an animal's body and must be acquired directly through its diet.

Acid Rain

Precipitation elevated in atmospheric hydrogen ions caused by emissions of sulfur dioxide ($\text{SO}_2$) and nitrogen oxides ($\text{NO}_x$) from fossil fuel combustion, which depletes available soil calcium ($\text{Ca}^{2+}$).

Soil Calcium Availability (Songbirds)

A mineral resource shown by Sarah E. Pabian and Margaret C. Brittingham (2011) to limit forest songbird clutch size, productivity, and territory density in Pennsylvania.

Kakapo

A critically endangered, flightless parrot in New Zealand ($\sim 125$ individuals) whose supplementary feeding program increased chick survival but initially skewed offspring sex ratios to $70\%$ male, requiring food regulation by female body weight to restore balance.

Surface Area to Volume Ratio (Metabolism)

A geometric ratio that is higher in smaller animals, leading to rapid heat loss and a higher mass-specific metabolic rate that demands proportionately more energy intake than in larger animals.

Optimal Foraging Theory

An behavioral model formalized by MacArthur & Pianka (1966) and Stephens & Krebs (1986) stating that animals select food items and patch visit durations to maximize net energy intake per unit of time.

Optimal Diet Model

A branch of optimal foraging theory evaluating how a forager decides which prey items to consume based on energy content, search time, and handling time upon encountering prey.

Patch Selection Theory

A branch of optimal foraging theory modeling the behavior of a forager choosing among discrete spatial prey patches separated by travel time.

Central Place Foraging Theory

A branch of optimal foraging theory modeling foragers that must periodically return to a specific home base or nest to consume, store, or provision food to offspring.

Food Item Profitability

The ratio of net energy gained ($E$) to the combined search time ($s$) and handling time ($h$), calculated as $\frac{E}{s + h}$.

Marginal Value Theorem

An optimality model predicting that a forager should leave a depleting resource patch when its marginal rate of intake drops to the average intake rate of all available patches in the landscape, taking travel time into account.

Type III Functional Response

A predator functional response pattern represented by a sigmoidal curve where prey consumption rate per predator accelerates at intermediate prey densities due to mechanisms like prey switching or search image acquisition.

r-selected Species

Species adapted to maximize reproductive rate ($r$), characterized by early age of first breeding, large clutch/litter sizes, short lifespans, high juvenile mortality, low population stability, and minimal parental care.

K-selected Species

Species adapted for maintaining population stability near carrying capacity ($K$), characterized by delayed reproduction, small litter/clutch sizes, long lifespans, low juvenile mortality, stable populations, and extended parental care.

Competitive Exclusion Principle

The ecological principle dictating that two species competing for the exact same limiting resource cannot stably coexist, leading to the local extinction of the weaker competitor.

Competition Coefficient ($\alpha_{12}$)

A scaling factor in Lotka-Volterra competition models that quantifies the per-capita inhibitory effect of species 2 on species 1, expressing individuals of species 2 in terms of species 1 equivalents.

Zero Growth Isocline

A line plotted on a phase space graph representing the population densities of two competing species at which the net growth rate of a given species is zero ($\frac{dN}{dt} = 0$).

Stable Coexistence

An outcome in Lotka-Volterra competition models where two species stably persist together because intraspecific competition is stronger than interspecific competition for both species ($\alpha_{12} < \frac{K_1}{K_2}$ and $\alpha_{21} < \frac{K_2}{K_1}$).

Mutual Antagonism

An unstable equilibrium in Lotka-Volterra competition models occurring when interspecific competition exceeds intraspecific competition for both species, causing the winning species to depend on initial starting densities.

Population

A group of interbreeding individuals of the same species occupying a defined geographical area at a given time, representing the primary functional unit for ecological management and evolutionary selection.

Community

An assemblage of populations of different species co-occurring within a defined area and interacting directly or indirectly through food webs and trophic pathways.

Ecosystem

A biological community of interacting organisms along with their non-living abiotic environment (soil, air, water) integrated through energy flows and nutrient cycling.

Landscape

A spatial mosaic consisting of a heterogeneous mixture of repeating local ecosystems and land uses distributed across a broader region.

Habitat

The specific suite of physical and biological resources required by an individual or species to successfully survive and reproduce.

Worm-Eating Warbler (Helmitheros vermivorus)

A forest songbird species requiring large blocks of oak-hickory forest on steep slopes with abundant aerial and ground-level leaf litter for nesting and foraging.

Semelparous

Describing a life history strategy in which an organism undergoes a single reproductive event in its lifespan prior to death.

Iteroparous

Describing a life history strategy characterized by multiple reproductive cycles over the course of an organism's lifetime.