Community Level Ecology

A set of flashcards summarizing key vocabulary and concepts in community level ecology.

Ecology

The study of relationships between living organisms and their physical surroundings.

Abiotic

Nonliving physical components of the environment, such as climate, soil, and latitude.

Biotic

Living components of the environment, including species, plants, animals, etc.

Community Ecology

The study of interactions among multiple populations of different species living in a particular geographic area.

Population Ecology

The study of the structure and dynamics of populations, including their size, density, and genetic composition.

Ecosystem Ecology

The study of entire ecosystems and the interactions between living and nonliving components.

Biosphere

The sum of all ecosystems; consisting of living organisms, the lithosphere, atmosphere, and hydrosphere.

Foundation Species

Species that cause significant physical or chemical changes in the environment, affecting other species.

Keystone Species

Species that control the distribution or abundance of many other species, despite not being the most abundant.

Dominant Species

The species that are most abundant in terms of number or biomass in a community.

Species Richness

The number of different species present in a community.

Species Evenness

The relative abundance of each species in a community compared to one another.

Species Diversity

A measure of community complexity combining species richness and species evenness.

Intermediate Disturbance Hypothesis

The theory that communities with moderate levels of disturbance have greater species diversity.

Taxonomic Affinity

A group of species that share a common descent or are closely related.

Guild

A group of species that utilize the same resources.

Functional Group

A category of species that function similarly but may not necessarily use the same resources.

Mismatching

A situation where species interactions are no longer synchronized due to changes in climate or environment.

Shannon Index

A mathematical formula used to measure species diversity, taking into account both richness and evenness.

Species Accumulation Curve

A graph that shows the number of species observed as more sampling is done, indicating when enough sampling has occurred.

Heterogeneity

The variation or patchiness of environmental factors within a habitat, affecting species richness.

Climate

Long-term weather conditions of an area that influence community structure and species distribution.