Sequential hermaphroditism

:  a change in sex during the course of a life cycle.

Life history:

a record of events and landmarks related to an organisms growth, development, reproduction, and survival.

Phenotypic plasticity

A single genotype may produce different phenotypes for a particular trait under different environmental conditions. (Ability to adjust to environmental conditions through genotype)

Complex life cycle:

a life cycle in which there are at least 2 distinct stages that differ in their habitat, physiology, or morphology.

Metamorphosis

an abrupt transition in form from the larval to the juvenile stage, usually accompanied by a change in behavior and/or habitat.

Direct development:

simple life cycles, go directly from fertilized egg to juvenile without passing through larval stage.

Isogamy

production of equal sized gametes; ancestral

Anisogamy

the production of unequal sized gametes; multicellular organisms

Semelparous:

species that reproduce only once in a lifetime

Iteroparous

species that reproduce more than once in a lifetime.

r refers to intrinsic rate of increase-exponential growth, where a constant proportion changes at each instant in time.

K refers to the carrying capacity

Stress:

abiotic factor that limits growth; extreme temp., shading, low nutrients, water shortage

Grimes model

Competitive

Stress Dominant

Ruderal

Competitive plants: under low stress and disturbance competitive plants have an adaptive advantage

Stress-tolerant plants: in areas of high stress, low disturbance stress-tolerant plants dominate; slow growth rates, evergreen, slow resource use

Ruderal plants: plants adapted to high disturbance, low stress; short lifespan, rapid growth, high seed production, resistant seeds, weedy spp.

Density:

# of individuals per unit area or volume

Dispersion:

the pattern of spacing among individuals within population boundries

Population ecology

Life table:

age specific summary of survival patterns

Survivorship curves

a plot of the proportion or numbers in a cohort still alive at each age

Intrinsic rate of increase (r):

r = b – d

What is b? d?

difference between per capita birth rate (b)and per capita death rate (d);

Exponential growth (geometric growth)

: a population reproducing at physiological capacity; population increases at a constant rate

Logistic population growth:

the per capita rate of increase approaches zero as the carrying capacity is reached.

Mortality of dune fescue grass (Vulpia membranacea) is mainly due to physical factors regardless of density, like drought stress arising from shifting dune sands and root exposure.  Therefore the death rate is density _________.

Reproduction by dune fescue declines population density increases; due to scarcity of water and nutrients exacerbated by more plants extracting more resources. Therefore birth rate is density _________.

Allee effect:

individuals have a hard time surviving or reproducing if the population is too small.

Population ecology
density dependent factors

1) Co________

2)Ter_______

3)Dis_____

4)Pre_____

5)Tox_____

6)Intr______

1) Competition

2)Territoriality- territory space the resource for which individuals compete

3) Disease-the transmission rate of many diseases depends on the level of crowding

4) Predation- As prey population grows predators will focus feeding on those abundant species

5) Toxic waste- The alcohol content of wine is no greater than 13% because that is the max. ethanol concentration most yeast species can tolerate

6) Intrinsic factors- high population densities in mice can induce a stress syndrome in which hormonal changes delay sexual maturity, shrink gonads, and depress immune system

Ecological footprint:

concept summarizing the aggregate land and water area required by each person, city, or nation to produce all the resources it consumes and to absorb all the wastes it generates. 

Species interact in a biological __________

Competition(-/-)

an interaction between, or within, species in which each is harmed when they both use a resource that limits their ability to grow and reproduce

Competitive exclusion principle:

2 species that use a limiting resource in the same way cannot coexist indefinitely; the similarity of the resources used by competitors affects the likelihood that one will drive the other to extinction; in the absence of disturbance one species will use resources more efficiently and reproduce more rapidly than the other; 2 species cannot coexist permanently in a community if their niches are identical

Ecological niche:

the sum of a species’ use of the biotic and abiotic resources in its environment; an organism’s “profession”; how it fits into an ecosystem.

Resource partitioning:

the use of limited resources by different species in a community in different ways; differentiation of niches that enables similar species to coexist in a community; “the ghost of competition past”;  evolution of niche differentiation

Interpecific competition makes the _______ niche of Chthamalus much smaller than its fundamental niche

Character displacement

is a tendency for characteristics to be more divergent in sympatric populations of two species than in allopatric populations of the same two species

Competition driving _________ displacement; the importance of competition in structuring communities

Predation (+/– interaction)

refers to interaction where one species, the predator, kills and eats the other, the prey

Aposematic

(warning) coloration

Advertising that you're dangerous.
"Don't eat me or you will die!"

Batesian mimicry

In this type of mimicry the palatable species mimics an unpalatable model.

Mullerian mimicry

In this type of mimicry two or more unpalatable species resemble each other.

1)  Behavioral responses

2) Crypsis

3) Toxins

4) Physical defenses

1) Avoidance

2) Tolerance

3) Defenses

Masting:

production of great number of seeds some years and none in other years; allows plants to hide in time from seed-eating herbivores, then overwhelm them by sheer numbers.

[Remember the bamboo plant discussion from class?]

Compensation:

removal of plant tissue stimulates new plant tissue growth.

Secondary compounds are often toxic or serve as chemical cues to attract predators or parasitoids to the plant. Secondary compound production can be constitutive or ___________

In parasitism (+/– interaction), one organism, the ______, derives nourishment from another organism, its _______, which is harmed in the process

Mutualistic symbiosis (+/+ interaction),

is an interspecific interaction that benefits both species

Commensalism (+/0 interaction),

one species benefits and the other is apparently unaffected

Species Diversity

of a community is the variety of organisms that make up the community

Species richness

is the total number of different species in the community

Relative abundance (evenness)

is the proportion each species represents of the total individuals in the community

Trophic structure

the feeding relationships between organisms in a community

_______ link trophic levels from producers to top carnivores

The _____________ suggests that length is limited by inefficient energy transfer

The ________hypothesisdynamic stability hypothesis proposes that long food chains are less stable than short ones

The ______-up model of community organization proposes a unidirectional influence from lower to higher trophic levels

The top-_____ model, also called the trophic cascade model, proposes that control comes from the trophic level above

Recent emphasis of change has led to a non______model, which describes communities as constantly changing after being buffeted by disturbance

The __________disturbance hypothesis suggests that moderate levels of disturbance can foster greater diversity than either high or low levels of disturbance

Ecological succession

_______succession occurs where no soil exists when succession begins

__________ succession begins in an area where soil remains after a disturbance

__________ is evaporation of water from soil plus transpiration of water from plants

Using top-down models for bio_________ practical applications for solving ecological  problems