BIO120H1 Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Ruderal Species
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BIO120H1 Full Course Notes
Verified Note
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Document Summary
Broadly applicable life history strategies: the r-k dichotomy. Life history do not vary independently across species. Certain traits covary--fast and slow life histories. High fecundity, low survival, short generation, small but numerous seeds, for. Human mind loves sharp dichotomies and discrete categories. But they tend to blur into each other and intermediate states exists. Most categories are usually artificial and arbitrary, even though they may reflect nature well. Jp grime felt that we needed three categories to organize life history in plants. Competitive species: slow k strategies; do well in crowded conditions. Ruderal species fugitive, weefy; grow quickly in sites that are temporarily uncrowded. Grime"s theory explains more ecological variation than r-k model. A category"s usefulness depend on its ability to bring together a substantial set of similar entities. Stochasticity revisited, with reference to modeling extinction risk. So far all models we considered a deterministic: deaths and births are treated as constants--outcome determined by starting conditions.
