ECOLOGY
●Community - assemblage of species population occurring together in same time &
place
○Collective properties: species diversity, composition, dominance, standing
biomass, productivity
○Emergent properties: food web structure
●Community ecology - interactions of organisms; adaptation to physical envi
○ competition, predation, parasitism etc.
Types of communities:
○ Terrestrial - differences determined by nature of vegetation & climatic conditions
(Biome)
■ Grassland
■ Tropical rainforest
○ Aquatic - differences determined by physical & chemical properties of water
■ Depth: shallow or deep
■ Flow of water: lotic or lentic
■ Salinity: freshwater or marine
■ Nutrient content: oligotrophic or eutrophic
●Ecological succession - change in species composition & community structure and
func over time; unidirectional, sequential change in relative dominance of species
○Primary: on areas devoid of/unchanged by organisms
○Secondary: proceeds from stage in which orgs are already present
●Sampling - data collection from subset to understand the whole; depends on taxon &
sampling unit
●Sampling sufficiency - species accumulation curve; “how to know if i sampled enough”
EXER 3A: GRASSLAND
● Grassland - grasses, sedges, herbaceous plants
○ Natural: climax community
○ Seral: pioneer / 1st sequence
■ Succession (primary vs secondary seral)
Describing grassland:
