Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
An interaction web, shown above right, [9] is similar to a topological web, but instead of showing the movement of energy or materials, the arrows show how one group influences another. In interaction food web models, every link has two direct effects, one of the resource on the consumer and one of the consumer on the resource. [10]
In his 1966 paper, Food Web Complexity and Species Diversity, Paine had described such a system in Makah Bay in Washington. [4] In his 1969 paper, Paine proposed the keystone species concept, using Pisaster ochraceus, a species of starfish generally known as ochre starfish, and Mytilus californianus, a species of mussel, as a primary example. [1]
The green world hypothesis proposes that predators are the primary regulators of ecosystems: they are the reason the world is 'green', by regulating the herbivores that would otherwise consume all the greenery. [1] [2] It is also known as the HSS hypothesis, after Hairston, Smith and Slobodkin, the authors of the seminal paper on the subject. [3]
An ecosystem engineer is any species that creates, significantly modifies, maintains or destroys a habitat. These organisms can have a large impact on species richness and landscape-level heterogeneity of an area. [1] As a result, ecosystem engineers are important for maintaining the health and stability of the environment they are living in.
The good news for the milkvetch plant is that they usually need wildfire to sprout — meaning dormant seeds now have a massive new habitat for a new crop of the rare shrub.
Trophic cascades are powerful indirect interactions that can control entire ecosystems, occurring when a trophic level in a food web is suppressed. For example, a top-down cascade will occur if predators are effective enough in predation to reduce the abundance, or alter the behavior of their prey, thereby releasing the next lower trophic level from predation (or herbivory if the intermediate ...
Trophic species are functional groups that have the same predators and prey in a food web. Common examples of an aggregated node in a food web might include parasites, microbes, decomposers, saprotrophs, consumers, or predators, each containing many species in a web that can otherwise be connected to other trophic species. [11] [12]
Robert Treat "Bob" Paine III (April 13, 1933 – June 13, 2016) was an American ecologist who spent most of his career at the University of Washington.Paine coined the keystone species [1] [2] [3] concept to explain the relationship between Pisaster ochraceus, a species of starfish, and Mytilus californianus, a species of mussel.