EVS 1101 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Chestnut Blight, Zebra Mussel, Keystone Species

• School: University of Ottawa
• Department: Environmental Science
• Course: EVS 1101
• Professor: Hafida El Bilali

Document Summary

Keystone species- a species that has a strong and far reaching impact on the community. Ecosystem engineers- organisms that physically modify the environment. Resistance- community of organisms resists change and remains stable despite the disturbance. Resilience- a community changes in response to a disturbance, but later returns to its original state. Succession- the predictable series of changes in a community following a disturbance. Primary succession- disturbance eliminates all vegetaion and/or soil life. Pioneer species- the irst species to arrive in a primary succession area. Secondary succession- a disturbance dramaically alters, but does not destroy, all local organisms. The remaining organisms form building blocks" for the next populaion species. Climax community- the community resuling from successful succession. Remains stable unil another disturbance restarts succession. Invasive species- non-naive organisms that spread widely and become dominant in a community. Growth-limiing factors, predator and disease etc, are removed or absent. Chestnut blight, from asia, wiped out american chestnut trees.