Week 5: Community Ecology

Textbook Reading Guide

 Chapter 16
o Define community, relative abundance, rank-abundance curve, species richness,
species evenness, diversity, dominance, keystone species, food chain, food web, link,
basal species, intermediate species, top predators, connectance, guild, functional type,
canopy, understory, herb layer, forest floor, photic layer, aphotic layer, benthic layer,
zonation, Sorensen’s coefficient of community, organismic concept of communities,
continuum concept, restoration ecology.
o Calculate:
 a species' relative abundance in a community
 community's species richness and diversity (we'll be using the Shannon
index)
 Sorensen’s coefficient of community
o Analyze a rank-abundance curve for species evenness.
o Describe the importance of a keystone species and predict how the removal of a
keystone species impacts the food web.
o Describe how species can be grouped in a community.
o For forest and aquatic communities, identify the key functional groups by their
physical structure. 
o Differentiate between the organismic (Clements) and continuum concept
(Gleason).
o Describe what is studied in restoration ecology and how an understanding of
communities is necessary for the field. 
 
 Chapter 17
o Define null model, keystone predation, apparent competition, indirect
commensalism, indirect mutualism, bottom-up control, top-down control, trophic
cascade, environmental heterogeneity
o Connect niche theory to community species composition and zonation. 
o Describe how ecologists use the null model in their analysis of community
dynamics.
o Describe some indirect interactions within food webs, specifically how keystone
predation, apparent competition, indirect mutualism, and indirect commensalism
affects community dynamics.
o Differentiate between top-down and bottom-up control of food webs.
o Describe what happens in a trophic cascade and predict how it affects each
trophic level.
o Explain how environmental heterogeneity influences patterns of diversity.
o Ecological Issues & Applications: Describe how the reintroduction of wolves in
Yellowstone lead to a trophic cascade.
 
 Chapter 18
o Define early successional species (pioneer species), late successional species,
primary and secondary succession, C/S/R-strategy plants, autogenic, allogenic,
intermediate disturbance hypothesis
 Week 5: Community Ecology
Textbook Reading Guide
o Describe how communities change over time and identify key stages of this
change.
o Differentiate between traits of early successional and late successional plant
species.
o Watch the video on the ecological succession of Mt. St. Helens. Apply the
following themes to this case: succession, disturbance, pioneer species, invasive
species.
o Differentiate between C/S/R-strategy plants to predict what kind of plants you
would expect along the succession of a plant community.
o Identify a few autogenic and allogenic changes that occur over the succession of
a plant community.
o Apply the intermediate disturbance hypothesis to describe how plant and animal
communities change over a disturbance gradient.
o Ecological Issues & Applications: Summarize how changes in land use alter
community structure in plant communities across the United States.
 
 Chapter 19
o Define mosaic, landscape ecology, habitat fragmentation, patch, matrix,
boundaries, connectivity, corridors, ecotone, edge species, edge effect, interior species,
area-insensitive species, landscape connectivity, structural connectivity, functional
connectivity, filter effect, Theory of Island Biogeography, turnover rate,
metapopulation, metacommunity.
o Identify the key features of a landscape when given a map: patch, matrix,
boundaries, corridors.
o Describe the habitat requirements for edge, interior, and area-insensitive
species.
o Analyze how connected (structurally or functionally) a particular habitat would
be for a particular species.
o Field Studies: Identify the experimental habitat's features that promotes
butterfly movement rates and explain why that pattern was observed.
o Apply the Theory of Island Biogeography to explain differences in species
immigration and extinction in small vs. large patches; near vs. far patches (Don't worry
about the math involved!).
o Compare and contract metapopulations and metacommunities.
o Ecological Issues & Applications: Summarize how landscape corridors are used in
conservation biology.