Floristic Quality Assessment
Floristic Quality Assessment (FQA) is a tool used in the United States to assess an area's ecological integrity based on its plant species composition. Floristic Quality Assessment was originally developed in order to assess the likelihood that impacts to an area "would be irreversible or irretrievable...to make standard comparisons among various open land areas, to set conservation priorities, and to monitor site management or restoration efforts." The concept was developed by Gerould Wilhelm in the 1970s in a report on the natural lands of Kane County, Illinois. In 1979 Wilhelm and Floyd Swink codified this "scoring system" for the 22-county Chicago Region. Coefficient of conservatism Each plant species in a region is assigned a coefficient of conservatism, also known as a C-value, ranging between 0 and 10. A plant species with a higher score (e.g. 10) has a ''lower'' tolerance to environmental degradation such as overgrazing or development and therefore is naturally restr ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Species Composition
Relative species abundance is a component of biodiversity and is a measure of how common or rare a species is relative to other species in a defined location or community.Hubbell, S. P. 2001. ''The unified neutral theory of biodiversity and biogeography''. Princeton University Press, Princeton, N.J. Relative abundance is the percent composition of an organism of a particular kind relative to the total number of organisms in the area. Relative species abundance (ecology), abundances tend to conform to specific patterns that are among the best-known and most-studied patterns in macroecology. Different populations in a community exist in relative proportions; this idea is known as relative abundance. Introduction Relative species abundance Relative species abundance and species richness describe key elements of biodiversity. Relative species abundance refers to how common or rare a species is relative to other species in a given location or community.McGill, B. J., Etienne R. S., Gra ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Botanist
Botany, also called plant science, is the branch of natural science and biology studying plants, especially Plant anatomy, their anatomy, Plant taxonomy, taxonomy, and Plant ecology, ecology. A botanist or plant scientist is a scientist who specialises in this field. "Plant" and "botany" may be defined more narrowly to include only land plants and their study, which is also known as phytology. Phytologists or botanists (in the strict sense) study approximately 410,000 species of Embryophyte, land plants, including some 391,000 species of vascular plants (of which approximately 369,000 are flowering plants) and approximately 20,000 bryophytes. Botany originated as history of herbalism#Prehistory, prehistoric herbalism to identify and later cultivate plants that were edible, poisonous, and medicinal, making it one of the first endeavours of human investigation. Medieval physic gardens, often attached to Monastery, monasteries, contained plants possibly having medicinal benefit. ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Measurement Of Biodiversity
A variety of objective means exist to empirically measure biodiversity. Each measure relates to a particular use of the data, and is likely to be associated with the variety of genes. Biodiversity is commonly measured in terms of taxonomic richness of a geographic area over a time interval. In order to calculate biodiversity, species evenness, species richness, and species diversity are to be obtained first. ''Species evenness'' is the relative number of individuals of each species in a given area. ''Species richness'' is the number of species present in a given area. ''Species diversity'' is the relationship between species evenness and species richness. There are many ways to measure biodiversity within a given ecosystem. However, the two most popular are Shannon-Weaver diversity index, commonly referred to as Shannon diversity index, and the other is Simpsons diversity index. Although many scientists prefer to use Shannon's diversity index simply because it takes into account sp ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Community Ecology
In ecology, a community is a group or association of populations of two or more different species occupying the same geographical area at the same time, also known as a biocoenosis, biotic community, biological community, ecological community, or life assemblage. The term community has a variety of uses. In its simplest form it refers to groups of organisms in a specific place or time, for example, "the fish community of Lake Ontario before industrialization". Community ecology or synecology is the study of the interactions between species in communities on many spatial and temporal scales, including the distribution, structure, abundance, demography, and interactions of coexisting populations. The primary focus of community ecology is on the interactions between populations as determined by specific genotypic and phenotypic characteristics. It is important to understand the origin, maintenance, and consequences of species diversity when evaluating community ecology. Comm ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Biodiversity
Biodiversity is the variability of life, life on Earth. It can be measured on various levels. There is for example genetic variability, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and Phylogenetics, phylogenetic diversity. Diversity is not distributed evenly on Earth. It is greater in the tropics as a result of the warm climate and high primary productivity in the region near the equator. Tropical forest ecosystems cover less than one-fifth of Earth's terrestrial area and contain about 50% of the world's species. There are latitudinal gradients in species diversity for both marine and terrestrial taxa. Since Abiogenesis, life began on Earth, six major mass extinctions and several minor events have led to large and sudden drops in biodiversity. The Phanerozoic aeon (the last 540 million years) marked a rapid growth in biodiversity via the Cambrian explosion. In this period, the majority of Multicellular organism, multicellular Phylum, phyla first appeared. The next 400 mil ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Russell R
Russell may refer to: People * Russell (given name) * Russell (surname) * Lady Russell (other) * Lord Russell (other) ** Bertrand Russell * Justice Russell (other) Places * Russell Island (other) * Mount Russell (other) Australia * Russell, Australian Capital Territory * Russell Island, Queensland (other) ** Russell Island (Moreton Bay) ** Russell Island (Frankland Islands) * Russell Falls, Tasmania *A former name of Westerway, Tasmania Canada * Russell, Ontario, a township in Ontario * Russell, Ontario (community), a town in the township mentioned above. * Russell (Ontario federal electoral district), which existed from 1867 to 1968 *Russell, Manitoba * Russell Island (Nunavut) New Zealand * Russell, New Zealand, formerly Kororareka * Okiato or Old Russell, the first capital of New Zealand Solomon Islands *Russell Islands United States *Russell, Arkansas *Russell City, California, formerly Russell *Russell, Colorad ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Environmental Mitigation
Environmental mitigation refers to the process by which measures to avoid, minimise, or compensate for adverse impacts on the environment are applied. In the context of planning processes like Environmental Impact Assessments, this process is often guided by applying conceptual frameworks like the "mitigation hierarchy" or "mitigation sequence". This generally includes the steps avoid, reduce, restore, and offset. In some countries, environmental mitigation measures, including biodiversity offsetting, may be required by law. In practice, environmental mitigation measures might be implemented by establishing new habitat, restoring degraded habitat, and preserving or enhancing existing habitats to offset impacts that cannot be avoided or reduced. It is also often applied with certain objectives for biodiversity levels or specific ecosystems in mind, such as "no net loss" or "net gain". Terminology Environmental mitigation can be defined in various ways depending on the institut ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Washington (state)
Washington, officially the State of Washington, is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is often referred to as Washington State to distinguish it from Washington, D.C., the national capital, both named after George Washington (the first President of the United States, U.S. president). Washington borders the Pacific Ocean to the west, Oregon to the south, Idaho to the east, and shares Canada–United States border, an international border with the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of British Columbia to the north. Olympia, Washington, Olympia is the List of capitals in the United States, state capital, and the most populous city is Seattle. Washington is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 18th-largest state, with an area of , and the List of U.S. states and territories by population, 13th-most populous state, with a population of just less than 8 million. The majority of Washington's residents live ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Gulf Coastal Plain
The Gulf Coastal Plain extends around the Gulf of Mexico in the Southern United States and eastern Mexico. This coastal plain reaches from the Florida Panhandle, southwest Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, the southern two-thirds of Alabama, over most of Mississippi, western Tennessee and Kentucky, extreme southern Illinois, the Missouri Bootheel, eastern and southern Arkansas, all of Louisiana, the southeast corner of Oklahoma, and easternmost Texas in the United States. It continues along the Gulf in northeastern and eastern Mexico, through Tamaulipas and Veracruz to Tabasco and the Yucatan Peninsula, Yucatán Peninsula on the Bay of Campeche. Geography The Gulf Coastal Plain's southern boundary is the Gulf of Mexico in the U.S. and the Sierra Madre de Chiapas in Mexico. On the north, it extends to the Ouachita Mountains, Ouachita Highlands of the Interior Low Plateaus and the southern Appalachian Mountains. Its northernmost extent is along the Mississippi embayment (Mississippi ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Autecology
Autecology is an approach in ecology that seeks to explain the distribution and abundance of species by studying interactions of individual organisms with their environments. An autecological approach differs from ecosystem ecology, community ecology (synecology) and population ecology ( demecology) by greater recognition of the species-specific adaptations of individual animals, plants or other organisms, and of environmental over density-dependent influences on species distributions. Autecological theory relates the species-specific requirements and environmental tolerances of individuals to the geographic distribution of the species, with individuals tracking suitable conditions, having the capacity for migration at at least one stage in their life cycles.Walter, GH; Hengeveld, R (2014). Autecology: organisms, interactions and environmental dynamics. Boca Raton: CRC Press. Autecology has a strong grounding in evolutionary theory, including the theory of punctuated equilibrium and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Dalea Foliosa
''Dalea foliosa'', commonly called leafy prairie clover, is a species of flowering plant in the legume family (Fabaceae). It is an endangered species in the United States, where it occurs in three states: Illinois, Tennessee, and Alabama.USFWS''Dalea foliosa'' (Leafy Prairie-Clover) determined to be endangered.''Federal Register'' May 1, 1991. Description This is a perennial herb growing 20 to 80 centimeters tall, with a number of erect stems sprouting from a hard root crown. The leaves are each made up of hairless oval leaflets measuring up to 1.3 centimeters long. The inflorescence is a cone-shaped or cylindrical spike of many purple flowers with pointed green bracts between them. Blooming occurs in summer.''Dalea foliosa''. Illinois Wildflowers. The flowers are pollinated by [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |