Big Things
Something caused by a removal of a keystone species, most notably wolves in Yellowstone.
What are trophic cascades?
Something that does not kill you (yet/directly), yet is still has a predatory relationship with you.
What is a parasite?
Describes a environmental factor that is NOT alive.
What is an abiotic factor?
A species that has a important and/or regulatory effect on the whole ecosystem that it lives in.
The title of this song by Linkin Park is a great way to describe what species are looking for when they search for a niche.
What is "Somewhere I Belong?"
Almost invariably some kind of plant, this group of organisms is responsible for all the energy that goes into a food chain.
What is a producer?
This is often imagined as a small space, but really is the "job" something does (how/what it eats ect.) and all the tools it needs to do it. This can be partitioned, taken over, or lost.
What is a niche?
The prefix used to describe these species during ecological succession is often also used to describe the genocidal maniacs who migrated west during the period of american expansion shortly after the Louisiana purchase.
What is a pioneer species?
This landmark law, which is currently being gutted in favor of obsolete technology, was critical to restoring Yellowstone after the trophic cascade that began in 1926.
What is the Endangered Speicies Act?
This song by Lemon Demon is an semi-decent allagory for interference competition, except the "species" are represented by various ficticious and real humans who engage in a wildy disorganized melee.
What is "The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny"?
(This isn't even a strech so much as a complete break, I'm just very nearly out of ideas)
This is a consumer four times removed from the producers on a food chain.
What is a quaternary consumer?
(I really just wanna see how many people can remember and pronounce this.)
Do I live? Am I abiotic? Who knows? There's not a great consensus either way, but I'm a pain and can kill you sometimes. I am a significant factor in some ecosystems, especially when I get out of control.
What is a virus?
A straight line, that runs diagonally across a survivorship graph.
What is a Type II Survivorship graph?
These little creeps live inside something while they're developing, and then kill their host as they emerge to adulthood. Fun!
This song by Crypta illustrates nicely how the body responds to starvtaion, which in the wild could be caused by competitive exclusion (although the song is specifically about the horrors of humans starving).
What is "Starvation"?
(I am quite possibly reaching on this one's connection to biology.)
This nature of these relationships is hotly debated, due to the unlikelihood of anything insisting in with something else in a neutral relationship.
What is Commensalism?
This only affects one type of life-form, whereas the other type of factor affects all life-forms in it's ecosystem.
What's a biotic factor?
Trees have this type of Survivorship graph, but most people wouldn't assume so.
What is a Type III Survivorship Graph?
In order to gain resources, one species directly attacks and prevents another from gaining access to resources.
What is interference competition?
What is "Poisoning Pidgeons in The Park"?
Type of interaction which is not direct, but can have dramatic effects on the "loser" in the relationship. (Think niche partitioning, death, ect.)
What is exploitative competition?
I write things like this when I run out of things for a particular category.
What is "cutting bait"?
This is a fun one, and I learned about an aspect of this on my Journey to Florida and Back- this is the term for all that CAN inhabit a particular niche. A really great example of this is the red mangrove, which is actually NOT especially happy in the brackish coastal estuaries it proliferates in. It could, in theory do better in the ______ niche that exists inland, but it's realized niche is in the coastal estuaries. Isn't that neat?
What is a fundamental niche?
What defensive strategy does not protect you from death personally, but will protect the whole population from predation?
What is warning coloration?
This one is not technically biology related, but in my mind anything that contains the word "describe" invokes the thought of this Russian author, who was an eccentric killed by the NKVD during the purges. Wore glasses and had a habit of noting things he wanted to describe in his books by asking "What is x thing? Describe."
What is Issac Babel?*
*In his memory, this remains "what" and not the more grammatically correct "who."