Community Ecology

1. Distinguish a biological community from an ecosystem.

2. Identify examples of and distinguish between intraspecific and interspecific interactions.

Intraspecific interaction- interaction that occurs among individuals of the same species. Competition for a mate or territory 

Interspecific interaction- interaction between organisms of different species. Predation; one organism benefiting from another organism  

3. Distinguish among and identify examples of the following interspecific interaction types:

• competition- both species involved are harmed

• exploitation- one species is positively affected and one species is negatively effected ( herbivory, parasitism, predation

– predation- an interaction between species in which one species, the predator, eats the, other the prey

– herbivory-in interaction where an organism eat plants or algae

– parasitism- occurs when one organism live in another organism and negative effects the organism it is living on. 

• positive interactions

– mutualism- interaction where both species benefit

– commensalism- +/0 interaction where one organism benefits and ther other is neither helped or harmed

4. Identify examples of and distinguish between outcomes of competition:

 competitive exclusion- population in one species uses resources more efficiently than the other population and eventually eliminate the other population because they will reproduce more. 

resource partitioning-the division of envirnomental resources by coexisting species in a niche. Each species differs by one or more traits or factors

Character displacement- when an organism's behavioral and physical trait changes to coexist with another species

5. Identify examples of adaptive defenses in animals from a description or image.

6. Define niche, and distinguished between fundamental and realized niche.

Niche is the role of species( how organism get their food, water, etc)

Realized niche- smaller than a niche. The niche is restricted when competition is present. Individuals are only founded here

Fundamental niche- niche that is determined by abiotic resources

7. Interpret a tolerance range graph.

8. Distinguish between 

species diversity- the number and relative abundance of species in a biological community 

 species evenness- a measure of how evenly species are distributed in a community

species richness-the number of species in a biological community 

9. Determine which community among examples has the highest species evenness or species

richness from an image or description of communities.

10. Determine which community among examples has the highest species diversity:

• from an image or description of communities

• by using Shannon’s diversity index (H) to compare communities

11. Identify and distinguish between dominant and keystone species from an image or description.

dominant and keystone exert great control over community diversity and function

Dominant is very abundant, usually producers and has lots of biomass

Keystone has less biomass, typically consumers. Top down control

12. Identify and distinguish between bottom-up and top-down models of control over community

Organization.

Top down is consumers/ keystone bottom up is dominant/ producers

13. Relate natural disturbances to the nonequilibrium model of community dynamics and the

intermediate disturbance hypothesis.

14. Describe ecological succession by:

• comparing and contrasting primary and secondary succession- 

primary succession is starting from scratch in a new area, there is no soil or rock. Secondary succession is when life recovers but there are set backs. Soil set exist in the environment 

• identifying examples of both from descriptions or data