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Introduction to Community Ecology

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Introduction to Community Ecology

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    1. Introduction to Community Ecology

    2. Community estimated 1.5 million – 30 million species that live on earth today fraction of those species that coexists in space and time and interact with one another (and the environment)

    3. Organizational Hierarchy sub-organism whole organism population community ecosystem landscape

    4. Organizational Hierarchy sub-organism whole organism population – individuals of the same species community ecosystem landscape

    5. Organizational Hierarchy sub-organism whole organism population community – multiple species interacting (biotic elements) ecosystem landscape

    6. Organizational Hierarchy sub-organism whole organism population community ecosystem – biotic plus abiotic features landscape

    7. Organizational Hierarchy sub-organism whole organism population community ecosystem landscape separations and distinctions between levels are artificial (Vitousek 1990) should understand processes at least one level and one down from your level of interest

    8. Goal of Community Ecology to understand origin, maintenance, and consequences of biological diversity

    9. Major Questions How do communities change in space/time? What are the organizing features of communities? How many species occur and why? Which species are dominant and why? Which species are common or rare and why? What is the relationship between species composition and functional diversity?

    10. Shifts in Community Ecology descriptive to experimental mathematical modeling improvements in statistical techniques

    11. Challenges taxonomy complexity of interactions changing environment natural anthropogenic search for generality experimentally intractable

    12. Long-term Temporal Processes evolutionary time

    13. Short-term Temporal Processes affect species occurrences and dynamics difficult to simulate/manipulate/plan for

    14. Temporal trends compare sites that differ in time since disturbance to study indirectly community change (chronosequence) assumption: sites are ecologically identical, except for time since disturbance

    15. Glacial Retreat Chronosequence

    16. Spatial Patterns species composition may have some degree of spatial dependency

    17. Subsets of Communities Guilds – similar functions or use similar resources Taxocene – taxonomically related group Trophic levels – acquire energy in similar ways Food chains/webs – energy flow between species in communities

    18. Biome general type of community terrestrial biomes distinguished mostly by their plants (see p.9 & 11, Morin for expanded list) determined by climate precipitation temperature

    19. Physically Defined Communities species found together boundaries of habitats discrete gradual

    20. Taxonomically Defined Communities use major dominant taxa Longleaf pine/wiregrass savannas (Pinus palustris and Aristida stricta)

    21. Statistically Defined Communities similarity in species composition loosely or tightly associated species

    22. Interactively Defined Communities species may be in the same geographic area but not interact defined by those species that influence each others’ abundances of 7 common salamanders in North Carolina mountains, only 2 interact (Hairston 1981)

    23. Community Properties

    24. Richness number of species difficult to obtain does not include commonness and rarity sufficient sampling effort?

    25. Diversity indices of diversity take into account richness AND abundance AND evenness How evenly distributed are individuals among the species present? imagine 2 communities with 10 species and 100 individuals One community has 91 individuals of one species and 1 individual in the other 9 species. A second community has 10 individuals of each species present. Which is the most diverse?

    26. Diversity takes into account richness AND abundance AND evenness How evenly distributed are individuals among the species present? imagine 2 communities with 10 species and 100 individuals One community has 91 individuals of one species and 1 individual in the other 9 species. A second community has 10 individuals of each species present. Which is the most diverse?

    27. Alpha, Beta and Gamma Diversity Alpha diversity – diversity within a single type of habitat Beta diversity – turnover in species composition among different habitats Gamma diversity – diversity present across the broader landscape

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