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Ecological Facilitation
Ecological facilitation or probiosis describes species interactions that benefit at least one of the participants and cause harm to neither.Stachowicz, J. J. 2001. Mutualism, facilitation, and the structure of ecological communities. BioScience 51: 235-246. Facilitations can be categorized as mutualisms, in which both species benefit, or commensalisms, in which one species benefits and the other is unaffected.Boucher, D. H., S. James, and K. H. Keeler. 1982. The ecology of mutualism. Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 13: 315-347.Callaway, R. M. 1995. Positive interactions among plants (Interpreting botanical progress). The Botanical Review 61: 306-349.Bruno, J. F., J. J. Stachowicz, and M. D. Bertness. 2003. Inclusion of facilitation into ecological theory. TREE 18: 119-125.Tirado, R. and F. I. Pugnaire. 2005. Community structure and positive interactions in constraining environments. OIKOS 111: 437-444. This article addresses both the mechanisms of facilitation and the incr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biological Interaction
In ecology, a biological interaction is the effect that a pair of organisms living together in a community have on each other. They can be either of the same species (intraspecific interactions), or of different species (interspecific interactions). These effects may be short-term, like pollination and predation, or long-term; both often strongly influence the evolution of the species involved. A long-term interaction is called a symbiosis. Symbioses range from mutualism, beneficial to both partners, to competition, harmful to both partners. Interactions can be indirect, through intermediaries such as shared resources or common enemies. This type of relationship can be shown by net effect based on individual effects on both organisms arising out of relationship. Several recent studies have suggested non-trophic species interactions such as habitat modification and mutualisms can be important determinants of food web structures. However, it remains unclear whether these findings g ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rhode Island
Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the List of U.S. states by area, smallest U.S. state by area and the List of states and territories of the United States by population, seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents 2020 United States census, as of 2020, but it is the List of U.S. states by population density, second-most densely populated after New Jersey. It takes its name from Aquidneck Island, the eponymous island, though most of its land area is on the mainland. Rhode Island borders Connecticut to the west; Massachusetts to the north and east; and the Atlantic Ocean to the south via Rhode Island Sound and Block Island Sound. It also shares a small maritime border with New York (state), New York. Providence, Rhode Island, Providence is its capital and most populous city. Native Americans lived around Narragansett Bay for thousands of years before English settler ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
North Carolina
North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and South Carolina to the south, and Tennessee to the west. In the 2020 census, the state had a population of 10,439,388. Raleigh is the state's capital and Charlotte is its largest city. The Charlotte metropolitan area, with a population of 2,595,027 in 2020, is the most-populous metropolitan area in North Carolina, the 21st-most populous in the United States, and the largest banking center in the nation after New York City. The Raleigh-Durham-Cary combined statistical area is the second-largest metropolitan area in the state and 32nd-most populous in the United States, with a population of 2,043,867 in 2020, and is home to the largest research park in the United States, Research Triangle Park. The earliest evidence of human occupation i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herbivore
A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically adapted to eating plant material, for example foliage or marine algae, for the main component of its diet. As a result of their plant diet, herbivorous animals typically have mouthparts adapted to rasping or grinding. Horses and other herbivores have wide flat teeth that are adapted to grinding grass, tree bark, and other tough plant material. A large percentage of herbivores have mutualistic gut flora that help them digest plant matter, which is more difficult to digest than animal prey. This flora is made up of cellulose-digesting protozoans or bacteria. Etymology Herbivore is the anglicized form of a modern Latin coinage, ''herbivora'', cited in Charles Lyell's 1830 ''Principles of Geology''.J.A. Simpson and E.S.C. Weiner, eds. (2000) ''The Oxford English Dictionary'', vol. 8, p. 155. Richard Owen employed the anglicized term in an 1854 work on fossil teeth and skeletons. ''Herbivora'' is derived from Latin ''herba' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Plant Defense Against Herbivory
Plant defense against herbivory or host-plant resistance (HPR) describes a range of adaptations evolved by plants which improve their survival and reproduction by reducing the impact of herbivores. Plants can sense being touched, and they can use several strategies to defend against damage caused by herbivores. Many plants produce secondary metabolites, known as allelochemicals, that influence the behavior, growth, or survival of herbivores. These chemical defenses can act as repellents or toxins to herbivores or reduce plant digestibility. Another defensive strategy of plants is changing their attractiveness. To prevent overconsumption by large herbivores, plants alter their appearance by changing their size or quality, overall decreasing their consumption rate. Other defensive strategies used by plants include escaping or avoiding herbivores at any time and/or in any place, for example, by growing in a location where plants are not easily found or accessed by herbivores or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abiotic Component
In biology and ecology, abiotic components or abiotic factors are non-living chemical and physical parts of the environment that affect living organisms and the functioning of ecosystems. Abiotic factors and the phenomena associated with them underpin biology as a whole. They affect a plethora of species, in all forms of environmental conditions, such as marine or land animals. Humans can make or change abiotic factors in a species' environment. For instance, fertilizers can affect a snail's habitat, or the greenhouse gases which humans utilize can change marine pH levels. Abiotic components include physical conditions and non-living resources that affect living organisms in terms of growth, maintenance, and reproduction. Resources are distinguished as substances or objects in the environment required by one organism and consumed or otherwise made unavailable for use by other organisms. Component degradation of a substance occurs by chemical or physical processes, e.g. hydroly ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aphids With Honeydew And Ants
Aphids are small sap-sucking insects and members of the superfamily Aphidoidea. Common names include greenfly and blackfly, although individuals within a species can vary widely in color. The group includes the fluffy white woolly aphids. A typical life cycle involves flightless females giving live birth to female nymphs—who may also be already pregnant, an adaptation scientists call telescoping generations—without the involvement of males. Maturing rapidly, females breed profusely so that the number of these insects multiplies quickly. Winged females may develop later in the season, allowing the insects to colonize new plants. In temperate regions, a phase of sexual reproduction occurs in the autumn, with the insects often overwintering as eggs. The life cycle of some species involves an alternation between two species of host plants, for example between an annual crop and a woody plant. Some species feed on only one type of plant, while others are generalists, colonizin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Evapotranspiration
Evapotranspiration (ET) is the combined processes by which water moves from the earth’s surface into the atmosphere. It covers both water evaporation (movement of water to the air directly from soil, canopies, and water bodies) and transpiration (movement of water from the soil, through roots and bodies of vegetation, on leaves and then into the air). Evapotranspiration is an important part of the local water cycle and climate, as well as measurement of it plays a key role in agricultural irrigation and water resource management. Definition Evapotranspiration is a combination of evaporation and transpiration, measured in order to better understand crop water requirements, irrigation scheduling, and watershed management. The two key components of evapotranspiration are: * Evaporation: the movement of water directly to the air from sources such as the soil and water bodies. It can be affected by factors including heat, humidity, and wind speed. * Transpiration: the move ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Soil Salinity
Soil salinity is the salt content in the soil; the process of increasing the salt content is known as salinization. Salts occur naturally within soils and water. Salination can be caused by natural processes such as mineral weathering or by the gradual withdrawal of an ocean. It can also come about through artificial processes such as irrigation and road salt. Natural occurrence Salts are a natural component in soils and water. The ions responsible for salination are: Na+, K+, Ca2+, Mg2+ and Cl−. Over long periods of time, as soil minerals weather and release salts, these salts are flushed or leached out of the soil by drainage water in areas with sufficient precipitation. In addition to mineral weathering, salts are also deposited via dust and precipitation. Salts may accumulate in dry regions, leading to naturally saline soils. This is the case, for example, in large parts of Australia. Human practices can increase the salinity of soils by the addition of salts in i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Iva Annua
''Iva annua'', the annual marsh elder or sumpweed, is a North American herbaceous annual plant in the family Asteraceae that was historically cultivated by Native Americans for its edible seed. Description ''Iva annua'' is an annual herb up to 150 cm (5 feet) tall. The plant produces many small flower heads in a narrow, elongated, spike-like array, each head with 11–17 disc florets but no ray florets. Distribution It is native to northeastern Mexico (Tamaulipas) and to the central and southern United States, primarily the Great Plains and Mississippi Valley as far north as North Dakota. There are some populations in the eastern US, but these appear to represent introductions. Uses ''Iva annua'' was cultivated for its edible seed by Native Americans around 4,000 years ago in the central and eastern United States as part of the Eastern Agricultural Complex. It was especially important to the indigenous peoples of the Kansas City Hopewell culture in present-day Missouri and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Juncus Gerardii
''Juncus gerardii'', commonly known as blackgrass, black needle rush or saltmarsh rush, is a flowering plant in the rush family Juncaceae. Distribution ''Juncus gerardii'' is mainly a coastal species, occurring at the high tide mark on the Mediterranean, Atlantic, Baltic and Black sea shorelines of Europe and the east coast of North America ''Juncus gerardii'' is one of the many species identified by Eric Hultén as amphi-Atlantic plants, meaning that they have a disjunct distribution on both sides of the Atlantic, but are absent on the Pacific side of the globe. It also occurs inland in parts of eastern Europe, west and central Asia, particularly on saline soils. In North America it occurs along the shorelines of areas once flooded by the sea, and as a weed along railway lines, for example in Minnesota. In Indiana, it is the only ''Juncus'' species found in the Tipton Till Plain, a Till Plain Till plains are an extensive flat plain of glacial till that forms when a sheet of i ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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