Purchase Solution

Ecosystems: Disturbance-Adapted v/s Immature

Not what you're looking for?

Ask Custom Question

A variety of enviornments are adapted to disturbance, including fire-adapted grasslands, fire-dependent forest types and floodplains. How can I explain the difference between distrubance-adapted ecosystems and ecoystems that simply never mature and never reach climax conditions?

Purchase this Solution

Solution Summary

Disturbance-adapted and immature ecosystems are compared in the solution.

Solution Preview

Disturbance is an episodic stress that causes substantial changes in the structure and function of ecosystems. Depending on its severity and extent, disturbance can influence individual organisms or entire stands, disrupting relationships among individuals within the community, and affecting ecological processes such as productivity, nutrient cycling, and decomposition. Natural disturbances can be caused by intense events of physical disruption associated with, for example, a hurricane, tornado, oceanic tidal wave, earthquake, the blast of a volcanic eruption, or over geological timespans, the advance and retreat of glaciers. Natural disturbances are also associated with wildfire, and with biological events, such as an irruption of defoliating insects that can kill a mature forest. Human activities are also important sources of ecological disturbances, as is the case of agricultural practices such as plowing, the harvesting of trees from forests, construction activities etc.

Once the intense physical, chemical, or biological stress associated with an event of disturbance is relaxed, succession begins, and this process may eventually restore an ecosystem similar to that present prior to the disturbance. However, depending on environmental circumstances, a rather different ecosystem may ...

Purchase this Solution


Free BrainMass Quizzes
"Tornadoes and Hurricanes" Vocabulary

Brief introduction to vocabulary terms related to the atmosphere. Definitions are related to conditions for tornadoes and hurricanes.

Energy

This quiz provides a brief review to different energy examples. How is energy evident in our world? This vocabulary is important to understand the connection between energy and matter.

Environment of the Earth

This quiz will focus on an introduction to basic Earth Science vocabulary. This info is important for an understanding of the principles involved with the study of the environment of the Earth.

United States and Canada Vocabulary

Assessment of basic vocabulary terms related to geography and resources in the United States and Canda.

Environmental Laws

The quiz tests some basic US environmental laws and policies.