Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
Adaptive capacity confers resilience to perturbation, giving ecological and human social systems the ability to reconfigure themselves with minimum loss of function.In ecological systems, this resilience shows as net primary productivity and maintenance of biomass and biodiversity, and the stability of hydrological cycles.
In the life sciences the term adaptability is used variously. At one end of the spectrum, the ordinary meaning of the word suffices for understanding. At the other end, there is the term as introduced by Conrad, [3] referring to a particular information entropy measure of the biota of an ecosystem, or of any subsystem of the biota, such as a population of a single species, a single individual ...
In behavioral ecology, adaptive behavior is any behavior that contributes directly or indirectly to an individual's reproductive success, and is thus subject to the forces of natural selection. [1] Examples include favoring kin in altruistic behaviors , sexual selection of the most fit mate, and defending a territory or harem from rivals.
Ecology is as much a biological science as it is a human science. [5] Human ecology is an interdisciplinary investigation into the ecology of our species. "Human ecology may be defined: (1) from a bioecological standpoint as the study of man as the ecological dominant in plant and animal communities and systems; (2) from a bioecological ...
Social-ecological systems are based on the concept that humans are a part of—not separate from—nature. [8] This concept, which holds that the delineation between social systems and natural systems is arbitrary and artificial, was first put forth by Berkes and Folke, [9] and its theory was further developed by Berkes et al. [10] More recent research into social-ecological system theory has ...
An example of ecological stability . In ecology, an ecosystem is said to possess ecological stability (or equilibrium) if it is capable of returning to its equilibrium state after a perturbation (a capacity known as resilience) or does not experience unexpected large changes in its characteristics across time. [1]
Adaptation is an observable fact of life accepted by philosophers and natural historians from ancient times, independently of their views on evolution, but their explanations differed.
Population, community, and physiological ecology provide many of the underlying biological mechanisms influencing ecosystems and the processes they maintain. Flowing of energy and cycling of matter at the ecosystem level are often examined in ecosystem ecology, but, as a whole, this science is defined more by subject matter than by scale.