ESA Community Ecology Flashcards
6 cards from real ESA practice questions. Tap to flip, then mark Knew It or Still Learning — missed cards come back until you master them.
Read the first 6 ESA Community Ecology flashcards as text
Which successional concept proposes that late-successional dominants inhibit early colonists but are eventually replaced by species tolerant of low resources?
Answer: Tolerance model
The tolerance model holds that species later in succession can establish under conditions created by earlier species and eventually outcompete them.
An ecological guild is defined as a group of species that:
Answer: Exploit the same class of environmental resources in a similar way
A guild groups species by functional role in resource use, regardless of taxonomic relationships.
The competitive exclusion principle (Gause's Law) states that:
Answer: Complete competitors cannot coexist indefinitely on a single limiting resource
Gause's Law states that two species competing for the exact same limiting resource cannot stably coexist; one will be excluded.
Which mutualistic relationship is obligate for both partners and results in a single functional organism?
Answer: Lichens
Lichens are an obligate symbiosis between fungi and photosynthetic algae or cyanobacteria that together form a single composite organism.
Trophic cascade effects occur when:
Answer: Changes in predator abundance indirectly alter plant biomass through effects on herbivores
A trophic cascade propagates indirect effects through food webs, typically with top predators controlling herbivores that in turn affect vegetation.
In plant community ecology, the 'climax community' concept has largely been replaced by which more dynamic view?
Answer: The shifting mosaic and non-equilibrium paradigm
Modern ecology views communities as non-equilibrial shifting mosaics shaped by disturbance, with no single stable endpoint.