see vocabulary for lectures 1 thru 8
| Lecture | word | short definition |
|---|---|---|
| 9 | habitat | physical location of where an species lives |
| niche | location and occupation or role of the species | |
| genetic adapation | change in species through time due to natural selection | |
| natural selection | process that changes specie's characteristics that are favorable for the environment through variable reproductive success | |
| barrier to overproduction | mechanisms that keep one genetic strain of the species from completely dominating the population | |
| co-evolution | natural selection processes between linked species, a beneficial adaption in one species will benefit the other, linked species | |
| physiology | how an organism functions (metabolism, mobility, etc) | |
| eco-physiological inference | using the physiological characteristics of a resident organism to infere which environmental conditions are important | |
| 10 | trophic levels | rough categorization of a community into levels based on how far they are away from the sun's energy (primary producers, consumers, secondary consumers, and recyclers/detritivores) |
| competition | within trophic level, exclusive explotation of a shared resource | |
| predator/prey | when the predator consumes the prey | |
| succession - traditional | pattern of orderly and predictable change in communities from bare land to pioneer species and eventually to the climax community | |
| community net productivity | gross production (all growth) minus the community respiration (energy to support that growth) | |
| succession - pulsing | the processes in succession are likely to happen in pulses when the resources build up to an easily exploitable level, then the consumers will rapidly use that resource - doesn't change the long term pattern of succession but describes how the change takes place at each step | |
| intermediate disturbance hypothesis | medium and small and continual disturbances maintain the ecosystem as a mosaic of communities that are continually in the process of moving toward the climax community | |
| resiliency cycle | the cycle of exploitation, conservation at high biomass, release of resources, and reorganization in preparation for another cycle of exploitation | |
| 11 | stability | general idea that a system will resist change and return to a preferred state |
| resistance | force or level of perturbation to push the state away from its preferred state | |
| resilience | amount of perturbation required to cause the system to flip to another state | |
| threshold | a external forcing function can have a small effect up to a threshold and then there will be larger changes (sigmoidal response) | |
| catastrophe | the change from one state to another is discontinuous leap | |
| hysteresis | the processes follows different paths in the forward and backward directions | |
| multiple steady states | the system contains internal feedbacks which will stablize the state of the system around two different regions (or attractors) | |
| collapse | when the system jumps to an alternate steady states that is a low-complexity and impoverished alternative | |
| feedback/systems | positive or negative interactions that can push the system or reinforce the dominance of one set of conditions | |
| attractor/network | the basin of stability | |
| 12 | biome | global scale region of plant, soil and climate |
| climate | annual or longer pattern of weather | |
| know each biome type | see biome reading | |
| altitude | height above sea level in meters or feet | |
| latitude | angular distatnce from the equator | |
| ecoregion | a finer scale description of plant, soil and climate - very useful in ecosystem management | |
| soil moisture | amount of water available for plant growth in the soil layer | |
| 13 | biodiversity | amount of variation in genetic, species or habitat |
| world views | reinforcing values and cognitive systems that guide peoples decisions | |
| utilitarian | the moral basis for decisions based on how valuable the product or service is to humans | |
| aesthetics | valuing the beauty or similar quality | |
| intrinsic | value based on the existence of a product or service, i.e. the fact that it exists give it some self-justifying intrinsic value | |
| land ethic | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Ethic | |
| biodiversity hotspot | regions on Earth that have high biodiversity that are targets for preservation because they are sources of genetic and species biodiversity | |
| panarchy | studying a system across scales, in particular connecting resiliency cycle centered at different time and space scales | |
| ecosystem services | production of a good or service from an ecosystem that can be (usually) expressed in financial terms | |
| reserves | any location that can protect, conserve or preserve biodiversity or individual species | |
| cooridors | specific lanes or areas that provide flow of species between different habitats or reserves | |
| 14 | model | a simplified description of a system that can be used for a variety of purposes |
| hypothesis | testable question | |
| habitat fragmentation | broken up landscape in which the individual fragment size and connectivity is impaired | |
| resource exploitation | use - doesn't imply overuse as in standard English | |
| Logistic model | a specific equation for growth of a population | |
| carrying capacity | the maximum population level reached in the Logisitic model | |
| intrinsic growth rate | the fastest growth rate of a population when no resources are limiting | |
| maximum sustainable yield | a model for harvesting at the maximum population growth rate and allowing the population to replace itself rapidly | |
| habitat degradation | impairment of the resources and conditions that support a healthy ecosystem | |
| take | the amount harvested | |
| 15 | common pool resource | a resource that is high subtractability (easily depleted) in an environment for which it is difficult to exclude potential exploiters |
| uncertainty | the unknown (and unknowable) change of an event | |
| risk probability | the calculated percent chance of event | |
| maxi-min | best case of the worst scenarios - avoiding the worst case | |
| iteratated | repeat a game or any algorithm multiple times | |
| evolutionarily stable strategy | a response that is most likely to succeed in multiple trials | |
| institution | a group of people coordinating their actions by following a set of rules | |
| 16 | rotation cycle | length of time it takes to regrow after cutting |
| selective cutting | harvesting particular, high-value trees | |
| shelter wood cutting | leaving some large trees | |
| clear cutting | taking all trees in an area | |
| strip or rotatinal cutting | cutting trees in a small area and replanting each year | |
| coppice cutting | cutting the shoots that come off an established trunk and root system | |
| avoided deforestation | reducing the logging of a forest that would have otherwise been cut | |
| leakage | saving one forest and another forest is cut instead | |
| carbon offset or credit | the amount carbon that would have been released - can be traded to balance some other activity | |
| REDD | Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation | |
| lecture 17 | degradation | (in this context) the loss of soil and other ecosystem structure |
| Allee effect | situation where low population density decreases reproductive success and there is a minimum viable population size | |
| marine reserve | an area set aside to protect ecosystem functions and fish populations (not a branch of the military) | |
| value pluralism | accepting and seeking different value statements | |