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Disturbance (ecology)
In ecology, a disturbance is a temporary change in environmental conditions that causes a pronounced change in an ecosystem. Disturbances often act quickly and with great effect, to alter the physical structure or arrangement of biotic and abiotic elements. A disturbance can also occur over a long period of time and can impact the biodiversity within an ecosystem. Major ecological disturbances may include fires, flooding, storms, insect outbreaks and trampling. Earthquakes, various types of volcanic eruptions, tsunami, firestorms, impact events, climate change, and the devastating effects of human impact on the environment (anthropogenic disturbances) such as clearcutting, forest clearing and the introduction of invasive species can be considered major disturbances. Not only invasive species can have a profound effect on an ecosystem, but also naturally occurring species can cause disturbance by their behavior. Disturbance forces can have profound immediate effects on ecosystem ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Contrasts - Fire
Contrasts may refer to: * ''Contrasts'' (Aziza Mustafa Zadeh album), 2006 * ''Contrasts'' (Bucky Pizzarelli & John Pizzarelli album), 1999 * ''Contrasts'' (Sam Rivers album), 1979 * ''Contrasts'' (Larry Young album), 1967 * ''Contrasts'' (Erroll Garner album), 1955 * ''Contrasts'' (Bartók), a chamber music composition See also * Contrast (other) {{disambiguation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Human Impact On The Environment
Human impact on the environment (or anthropogenic impact) refers to changes to biophysical environments and to ecosystems, biodiversity, and natural resources caused directly or indirectly by humans. Modifying the environment to fit the needs of society is causing severe effects including global warming, environmental degradation (such as ocean acidification), mass extinction and biodiversity loss, ecological crisis, and ecological collapse. Some human activities that cause damage (either directly or indirectly) to the environment on a global scale include population growth, overconsumption, overexploitation, pollution, and deforestation. Some of the problems, including global warming and biodiversity loss, have been proposed as representing catastrophic risks to the survival of the human species. The term ''anthropogenic'' designates an effect or object resulting from human activity. The term was first used in the technical sense by Russian geologist Alexey Pavlov, and it w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biological Dispersal
Biological dispersal refers to both the movement of individuals (animals, plants, fungi, bacteria, etc.) from their birth site to their breeding site ('natal dispersal'), as well as the movement from one breeding site to another ('breeding dispersal'). Dispersal is also used to describe the movement of propagules such as seeds and spores. Technically, dispersal is defined as any movement that has the potential to lead to gene flow. The act of dispersal involves three phases: departure, transfer, settlement and there are different fitness costs and benefits associated with each of these phases. Through simply moving from one habitat patch to another, the dispersal of an individual has consequences not only for individual fitness, but also for population dynamics, population genetics, and species distribution. Understanding dispersal and the consequences both for evolutionary strategies at a species level, and for processes at an ecosystem level, requires understanding on th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Herbivory
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] |
Seed Dispersal
In Spermatophyte plants, seed dispersal is the movement, spread or transport of seeds away from the parent plant. Plants have limited mobility and rely upon a variety of dispersal vectors to transport their seeds, including both abiotic vectors, such as the wind, and living ( biotic) vectors such as birds. Seeds can be dispersed away from the parent plant individually or collectively, as well as dispersed in both space and time. The patterns of seed dispersal are determined in large part by the dispersal mechanism and this has important implications for the demographic and genetic structure of plant populations, as well as migration patterns and species interactions. There are five main modes of seed dispersal: gravity, wind, ballistic, water, and by animals. Some plants are serotinous and only disperse their seeds in response to an environmental stimulus. These modes are typically inferred based on adaptations, such as wings or fleshy fruit. However, this simplified view may ignor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Competition (biology)
Competition is an interaction between organisms or species in which both require a resource that is in limited supply (such as food, water, or territory). Competition lowers the fitness of both organisms involved since the presence of one of the organisms always reduces the amount of the resource available to the other. In the study of community ecology, competition within and between members of a species is an important biological interaction. Competition is one of many interacting biotic and abiotic factors that affect community structure, species diversity, and population dynamics (shifts in a population over time). There are three major mechanisms of competition: interference, exploitation, and apparent competition (in order from most direct to least direct). Interference and exploitation competition can be classed as "real" forms of competition, while apparent competition is not, as organisms do not share a resource, but instead share a predator. Competition among membe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Extinction Vortex
Extinction vortices are a class of models through which conservation biologists, geneticists and ecologists can understand the dynamics of and categorize extinctions in the context of their causes. This model shows the events that ultimately lead small populations to become increasingly vulnerable as they spiral toward extinction. Developed by M. E. Gilpin and M. E. Soulé in 1986, there are currently four classes of extinction vortices. The first two (R and D) deal with environmental factors that have an effect on the ecosystem or community level, such as disturbance, pollution, habitat loss etc. Whereas the second two (F and A) deal with genetic factors such as inbreeding depression and outbreeding depression, genetic drift etc. Types of vortices *R Vortex: The R vortex is initiated when there is a disturbance which facilitates a lowering of population size (N) and a corresponding increase in variability (Var(r)). This event can make populations vulnerable to additional distu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Longleaf Pine Ecosystem
The longleaf pine ecosystem is a climax savanna habitat found within the Southern United States; it includes many rare plant and animal species, and is one of the most biodiverse in North America. Once the largest ecosystem in North America, it now occupies less than a quarter of the original range. Degradation of the ecosystem is partially due to excessive timber harvesting, urbanization, and fire exclusion. Although the ecosystem is heavily fragmented at present, it still carries a great diversity of plant and animal species, many of which are endemic. A range of techniques, including planting longleaf pine seedlings, introducing prescribed burning regimens, managing native ground cover, and controlling invasive species within the ecosystem, are used in attempting to preserve this threatened ecosystem. Original range During the Ice Age, when the North American continental glaciers extended as far south as parts of the Ohio River, the climate was colder and drier; longleaf pine ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Climate
Climate is the long-term weather pattern in an area, typically averaged over 30 years. More rigorously, it is the mean and variability of meteorological variables over a time spanning from months to millions of years. Some of the meteorological variables that are commonly measured are temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, and precipitation. In a broader sense, climate is the state of the components of the climate system, including the atmosphere, hydrosphere, cryosphere, lithosphere and biosphere and the interactions between them. The climate of a location is affected by its latitude/longitude, terrain, altitude, land use and nearby water bodies and their currents. Climates can be classified according to the average and typical variables, most commonly temperature and precipitation. The most widely used classification scheme was the Köppen climate classification. The Thornthwaite system, in use since 1948, incorporates evapotranspiration along with temperature ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Biocoenosis
A biocenosis (UK English, ''biocoenosis'', also biocenose, biocoenose, biotic community, biological community, ecological community, life assemblage), coined by Karl Möbius in 1877, describes the interacting organisms living together in a habitat (biotope). Möbius, Karl. 1877. ''Die Auster und die Austernwirtschaft.'' Verlag von Wiegandt, Hemple & Parey: Berlin (English translation: The Oyster and Oyster Farming. ''U.S. Commission Fish and Fisheries Report'', 1880: 683-751) The use of this term has declined in the 21st сentury. In the palaeontological literature, the term distinguishes "life assemblages", which reflect the original living community, living together at one place and time. In other words, it is an assemblage of fossils or a community of specific time, which is different from "death assemblages" ( thanatocoenoses).e.g. Ager, 1963, Principles of Palaeoecology No palaeontological assemblage will ever completely represent the original biological community (i.e. t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BioScience
''BioScience'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal that is published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the American Institute of Biological Sciences. It was established in 1964 and was preceded by the ''AIBS Bulletin'' (1951–1963). The journal publishes literature reviews of current research in biology, as well as essays and discussion sections on education, public policy, history of biology, and theoretical issues. Abstracting and indexing The journal is abstracted and indexed in MEDLINE/PubMed (1973–1979), the Science Citation Index, Current Contents/Agriculture, Biology & Environmental Sciences, The Zoological Record, and BIOSIS Previews. According to the ''Journal Citation Reports'', the journal has a 2020 impact factor of 8.589. References External links * {{Official website, http://bioscience.oxfordjournals.org/ Journal pageat the American Institute of Biological Sciences The American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) is a nonprofit s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Invasive Species
An invasive species otherwise known as an alien is an introduced organism that becomes overpopulated and harms its new environment. Although most introduced species are neutral or beneficial with respect to other species, invasive species adversely affect habitats and bioregions, causing ecological, environmental, and/or economic damage. The term can also be used for native species that become harmful to their native environment after human alterations to its food webfor example the purple sea urchin (''Strongylocentrotus purpuratus'') which has decimated kelp forests along the northern California coast due to overharvesting of its natural predator, the California sea otter (''Enhydra lutris''). Since the 20th century, invasive species have become a serious economic, social, and environmental threat. Invasion of long-established ecosystems by organisms is a natural phenomenon, but human-facilitated introductions have greatly increased the rate, scale, and geographic range of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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