ENWC314 Chapter Notes - Chapter 14: Coral Reef Fish, Reefa, Seaweed

• School: University of Delaware
• Department: Entomology and Wildlife Conservation
• Course: ENWC314
• Professor: York Joanna

Document Summary

If several disturbances hit a community at the same time, or in rapid succession, the community may not be able to recover, and will be pushed into an altered state. Communities often are heterogeneous they exhibit patchiness rather than uniformity and the impacts of disturbances may vary in different patches. The patchiness of different communities varies, and the patches may differ in size. Understanding community dynamics at small spatial scales of a few hectares, and aggregating the resulting dynamics into a regional or landscape scale, is one important approach needed to predict large-scale community dynamics in response to disturbances. Patches do not need to be completely homogenous like a concrete floor. Habitats and patches are typically mapped as vegetation communities for larger plants and animals. Landscape patchiness is a joint product of disturbance, soil type and topography. A disturbance disrupts community structure and changes available resources, substrate availability or the physical environment.