1. Geography of Communities

2. Communities Community as a superorganism (Clement) – highly integrated system Gleason – groups of species that happen to be at same place and time Either way, there is organization, even predictability

4. Community Organization: Energetics Body mass (size) and trophic status Basal metabolic rate (m) – energy uptake and metabolism of animals at rest m = cM 0.75 Where c = taxonomic-specific constant M = body mass Larger animal requires more total energy BUT less energy per unit of mass (0.75) than small animal Can also be applied to plants

5. Implications of Body Size Larger body size = storage potential Size influences size of environment needed Patchiness greater at smaller spatial scales = finer divisions of environment by smaller organisms (explaining why so many tiny species despit advantages of large body) Large animals contrained to large geographic range Low carrying capacity

7. Relationship between range and body mass

8. Community Organization: Energetics Energy flow ---- Food chains/webs Laws of thermodynamics place limit on complexity of community Productive-ecosystem- hypothesis

9. Communities in Space and Time: Transitions Ecotones – transitional areas between habitats Coenocline – a gradient of communities through transition in abiotic conditions or habitat

10. Discrete Communities Not comm. some species replace Gradual Replacement Indep. sp. No abrupt replacement Nested, segregated Hypothetical Coenoclines

11. Communities in Space and Time: Transitions Are community changes causal or independent? Whittaker – examined mountain communities Found evidence of independence (no abrupt changes)

12. Communities in Space and Time: Transitions Yeaton and pine distribution

13. Communities in Space and Time: Succession Sequential changes in community composition over time Implications – changes in community composition from –Differences in life history strategies (r vs. K) –Unintentional engineering –Competition Clementsian view Gleasonian view

14. Terrestrial Biomes

17. Biogeographic Units

18. Climatic Regions

19. Net Primary Productivity

22. Ecosystem Geography Examines how processes of production, energy flow, and nutrient cycling influence distribution of ecosystems Basis for development of ecoregions