EEB321H1 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Trophic Cascade, Logistic Function, Competitive Exclusion Principle
28 Apr 2016
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Lecture 1: what is community ecology? (jan 5) Ecology: the interactions that determine the distribution and abundance of organisms. Community: group of organisms living in the same place and time. Two views of ecological communities: the clementsian view: Communities are cohesive, integrated units akin in superorganisms. Groups of species are repeatedly found living together across spacetime. Communities show high inertia : diversity and abundances of species stays constant: the gleasonian view: Communities are merely collections of populations and every species is a law unto itself . Groups of species that live together today may not have co-occurred in the past (and may not so so in the future) Community inertia: we want to know how coherent ecological communities are, we need ways to compare communities. Ex. wood rat: middens accumulate small mammal bones which are used to infer species diversity and abundance going back a millennia.
