Download Outline Community Ecology and Ecosystems

Community Ecology
1. Explain the nature of the interspecific interactions occurring in communities.
Recognize:
a. Competition
b. Mutualism
c. Commensalism
d. Parasitism
2. Describing at least one example, explain the possible effects of predator-prey
interactions on the population sizes of both predator and prey
3. Describe and give examples of interspecific and intraspecific competition.
Explain the effects of interspecific and/or intraspecific competition on the
distribution and/or population size of two species
Ecosystems
Habitat and Niche
1. Define the term habitat and provide an example. List the factors used to
describe a habitat. Recognize the habitat as part of the described niche of a
species. Describe how variation in abiotic factors in a habitat may produce
microclimates and that these influence species distribution and diversity in a
general area.
2. Understand the concept of limiting factors and explain how limiting factors
restrict species distribution.
3. Describe the factors (especially abiotic factors) that affect the distribution of
plant species within an environment, including temperature, availability of
water and light, soil pH, and mineral nutrients.
4. Describe the biotic and abiotic factors that affect the distribution of animal
species within an environment, including temperature, availability of water
and breeding sites, food supply, and territory.
Environmental Gradients
5. Describe how abiotic factors may interact so that one factor changes another.
Describe how gradients in physical factors can occur over a relatively short
distance, e.g., on a rocky shore, or in a forest, desert, or lake. Explain the
cause of these gradients in each case.
6. With reference to specific examples, describe the main features of the two
most common types of distributional variation within a community: zonation
and stratification. Explain how these patterns arise and how they increase
the amount of community diversity. Identify the factors that determine the
distribution of species within these communities.
The Ecological Niche
7. Define the term ecological niche, and describe examples for a variety of
species. List the factors that are used to describe the niche.
8. Recognize the constraints that are normally placed on the actual niche
occupied by an organism. Distinguish between the fundamental and the
realized niche. Demonstrate an understanding of Gause’s “competitive
exclusion” principle with respect to niche overlap between species.
Understand the effects of competition on niche breadth.
9. Explain what is meant by the term adaptation and describe examples.
Recognize that organisms show physiological, structural, and behavioral
adaptations for survival in a given niche and that these are results of
changes that occur to the species as a whole, but not to individuals within
their own lifetimes.
The Diversity and Stability of Ecosystems
10. Recognize that the collection of quantitative population data provides the
means by which to study ecosystems in a meaningful way. Identify the types
of data that may be collected from communities.
11. Explain what is meant by the stability of an ecosystem and identify its
components. Explain the relationship between ecosystem stability and
diversity.
Ecological Succession
12. Explain what is meant by the term ecological succession. Recognize
succession as a community pattern in time that is the result of the
interaction of species with their environment.
13. Describe primary succession from pioneer species to a climax community.
Identify the species typical of each stage, distinguishing between the features
of the pioneer species and those species typical of the climax community.
14. Explain how each stage (change in the biotic community) alters the physical
environment such that conditions are made more favorable for the
establishment of the next stage.
15. Distinguish clearly between primary and secondary succession, outlining the
features of each type. Include reference to the time scale over which these
successions take place.
16. Describe how community diversity changes during the course of a succession.
Comment on the stability of the pioneer and climax communities and relate
this to the relative importance of abiotic and biotic factors at each stage.