Levels of Biodiversity
The variety of genes contained within individuals of a single population.
What is genetic diversity?
Products directly harvested or extracted by humans, such as timber, wild food, and freshwater.
What are provisioning services?
Islands that are larger in surface area experience lower rates of this phenomenon.
What is extinction?
The specific range of conditions (like temperature) where an organism thrives and reproduces best.
What is the optimum range?
The type of succession that begins on bare rock devoid of pre-existing topsoil.
What is primary succession?
The total number of different species present in a given ecological community
What is species richness?
Benefits from natural moderation processes, such as wetland flood mitigation and canopy climate control.
What are regulating services?
Islands located closer to a mainland source exhibit higher rates of species arrival, known as this.
What is immigration rate (or colonization)?
Disruptions that occur at regular, predictable intervals, such as daily high and low ocean tides.
What are periodic disruptions?
Lichens and mosses that break down bare rock to initiate soil formation during primary succession.
What are pioneer species?
An event causing a sharp decrease in population size, sharply reducing remaining genetic diversity.
What is a population bottleneck?
Fundamental natural processes that sustain ecosystems, such as soil formation and primary production.
What are supporting services?
Island species are often highly vulnerable to invasives because evolution in isolation favored this niche type
What are specialist species?
The zone in a tolerance range where organisms survive but experience reduced growth and reproductive stress.
What is the zone of physiological stress?
Succession occurring after a forest fire or clear-cutting where topsoil remains largely intact.
What is secondary succession?
The relative balance or proportion of individual organisms across each species in a community.
What is species evenness?
Non-material benefits provided by nature, including ecotourism, outdoor recreation, and aesthetic value.
What are cultural services?
The theoretical framework used to predict species richness based on island size and isolation distance.
What is the Theory of Island Biogeography?
Disruptions occurring in somewhat predictable repeating cycles, such as El Niño or seasonal wildfires.
What are episodic disruptions?
A species whose presence, absence, or population health provides early warning signs of ecosystem degradation.
What is an indicator species?
High ecosystem diversity provides greater ecological resilience, meaning the system can quickly do this after a disturbance.
What is recover (or bounce back)?
Economic impact occurs when human activity impairs natural wetland water filtration, requiring this costly infrastructure fix.
What is a water treatment plant?
Artificial habitat fragments in human landscapes act like islands; an example created by highway networks is this.
What is habitat fragmentation?
Long-term natural orbital cycles of Earth's tilt and path that historically drove glacial-interglacial shifts.
What are Milankovitch cycles?
A species exerting strong, disproportionate control over community structure relative to its overall abundance.
What is a keystone species?