A-B / C-D / E-F / G-H / I-J / K-L / M-N / O-P / Q-R / S-T / U-V / W-X / Y-Z
E-F
Ecological Semiotics, Ecosemiotics
Ecosemiotics is a branch of semiotics in its intersection with human ecology that studies the sign relations established by culture, which deal with other living beings, communities, and landscapes.
Ecological Succession (Secondary)
Ecological succession – the study of how biological communities re‐assemble following natural or anthropogenic disturbance – has been a foundation in ecology, and the theoretical framework underpins many aspects of the discipline (Egerton, 2015; Meiners, Cadotte, Fridley, Pickett, & Walker, 2014; Prach & Walker, 2011; Walker & Wardle, 2014).
Ecological succession in a changing world. Cynthia C. Chang, Benjamin L. Turner
Journal of Ecology. 2019 Feb
Edaphic
Relating to, or determined by, physical, chemical (such as alkalinity) and biological conditions of the soil, especially as it relates to biological and ecological systems.
Edaphic Factors
“Includes the physical, chemical, and biological properties of soil that result from biologic and geologic phenomena or anthropogenic activities. Discontinuities in the edaphic factor contribute to the intriguing patterns of diversity we see in the biotic world. Chemical and physical features of soil greatly influence the ecology and evolution of plants and their associated biota.” Courtesy of Science Direct
Ecosystem Integrity
An ecosystem with the ability to maintain its organization in the face of changing environmental conditions, it is said to have integrity. The integrity of an ecosystem does not only reflect a single characteristic of an ecosystem and therefore encompasses a wide set of criteria.
El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO)
A single climate phenomena expressed in three stages. Courtesy of
El Niño: A warming of the ocean surface, or above-average sea surface temperatures (SST), in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. Over Indonesia, rainfall tends to become reduced while rainfall increases over the tropical Pacific Ocean. The low-level surface winds, which normally blow from east to west along the equator (“easterly winds”), instead weaken or, in some cases, start blowing the other direction (from west to east or “westerly winds”).
La Niña: A cooling of the ocean surface, or below-average sea surface temperatures (SST), in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. Over Indonesia, rainfall tends to increase while rainfall decreases over the central tropical Pacific Ocean. The normal easterly winds along the equator become even stronger.
Neutral: Neither El Niño or La Niña. Often tropical Pacific SSTs are generally close to average. However, there are some instances when the ocean can look like it is in an El Niño or La Niña state, but the atmosphere is not playing along (or vice versa).
El Niño effects on the dynamics of terrestrial ecosystems. Holmgren M, Scheffer M, Ezcurra E, Gutiérrez JR, Mohren GM. Trends in Ecology & Evolution. 2001 Feb
Endangered
Any species which is in danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range and which is formally listed as endangered under the ESA.
Environmental Ethics
The discipline in philosophy that studies the moral relationship of human beings to, and also the value and moral status of, the environment and its non-human contents.
Equilibrium line (Snow/Glaciers)
The boundary between the accumulation area (area of a glacier where more mass is gained than lost) and ablation area (the area of a glacier where more glacier mass is lost than gained) where the mass balance is zero. [cite]
ESA (Endangered Species Act of 1973)
A Congressional Act which provides for the listing, protection, and recovery of endangered and threatened fish, wildlife, and plants.
Esker
A long winding ridge of stratified sand, gravel and other sediment, deposited by meltwater from a retreating glacier or ice sheet.
Also called an asar, osar, or serpent kame, examples of which occur in glaciated and formerly glaciated regions of Europe and North America. Eskers are frequently several kilometres long and, because of their peculiar uniform shape, are somewhat like railway embankments.
Den site selection of wolves (Canis lupus) in response to declining caribou (Rangifer tarandus groenlandicus) density in the central Canadian Arctic
MR Klaczek, CJ Johnson, HD Cluff – Polar Biology, 2015 – Springe
Ethogram
An ethogram is a catalogue or inventory of behaviours or actions exhibited by an animal used in ethology. The behaviours in an ethogram are usually defined to be mutually exclusive and objective, avoiding subjectivity and functional inference as to their possible purpose.
Ethology
The scientific study of animal behavior, especially as it occurs in a natural environment.
Evapotranspiration
Potential evapotranspiration or PE is a measure of the ability of the atmosphere to remove water from the surface through the processes of evaporation and transpiration assuming no control on water supply. The rate of evapotranspiration is associated to the gradient of vapor pressure between the ground surface and the layer of atmosphere receiving the evaporated water.
The following factors are extremely important in estimating potential evapotranspiration:
Potential evapotranspiration requires energy for the evaporation process. The major source of this energy is from the Sun. The amount of energy received from the Sun accounts for 80% of the variation in potential evapotranspiration.
Wind is the second most important factor influencing potential evapotranspiration. Wind enables water molecules to be removed from the ground surface by a process known as eddy diffusion.
Actual evapotranspiration or AE is the quantity of water that is actually removed from a surface due to the processes of evaporation and transpiration.
Eutrophication
Harmful algal blooms, dead zones, and fish kills are the results of a process called eutrophication—which begins with the increased load of nutrients to estuaries and coastal waters.
National Ocean Services | NOAA
Experimental, Non-essential Population
A species listed as experimental and non-essential. Experimental, nonessential populations of endangered species (e.g., red wolf) are treated as threatened species on public land, for consultation purposes, and as species proposed for listing on private land. Endangered Species Act
Experimental Population Designation (Section 10(j) Rule)
a concept added to the Endangered Species Act (ESA) as a way of reintroducing a species without severe restrictions on the use of private and public land in the area. Members of an experimental population can have special rules written for them which may include killing animals causing depredations (killing or harming domestic animals and/or livestock). This was proposed in order to reduce public opposition to the reintroduction of a major predator such as the wolf. If loss of the population would diminish the species‘ prospects for survival, the population is designated as essential and is treated as an endangered species. If the experimental population is designated as non-essential and is treated as a species that is proposed for listing as threatened or endangered. Examples of species with non-essential experimental populations are the Mexican gray wolf in the Southwest, the red wolf in the Southeast, the gray wolf in the Yellowstone area and the black-footed ferret.
International Wolf Center Glossary
Exploitation Competition
When organisms use up resources directly. Once used, the resource is no longer available for other species to use.
Facilitation Ecological or probiosis
Species interactions that benefit at least one of the participants and cause harm to neither.
Stachowicz, J. J. 2001. Mutualism, facilitation, and the structure of ecological communities. BioScience
“In comparison to a preceding wolf-free period, the volume and occurrence of large mammals in the diet of foxes showed a 2.8- to 3.5-fold increase. Apparently, foxes did not avoid wolves, which provided additional food to the foxes as prey leftovers. In a rich community, the presence of wolves may increase the food spectrum of foxes. Temporal variation of facilitation vs. competition should be assessed in relationship to spatiotemporal changes of predator–prey numbers.”
Recolonizing wolves and opportunistic foxes: interference or facilitation?. Ferretti F, Pacini G, Belardi I, ten Cate B, Sensi M, Oliveira R, Rossa M, Burrini L, Lovari S. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society. 2020 Dec
Fall wind
A wind that accelerates as it moves downslope because of its low temperature and greater density.
A fall wind is a larger-scale phenomenon than the individual-slope scale and is produced by accumulated cold air spilling down a slope or over a mountain range. The cold air often either accumulates on a plateau or other elevated terrain, or is part of an extensive cold air mass approaching a mountain range as a cold front. Fall winds may have a hydraulic character similar to water flowing over a dam, and one of the details of this flow is that the acceleration of the cold air begins to occur before the crest of the mountain range and therefore before the down-sloping portion of the topography.
Meteorology Glossary AMS
Fast ice (landfast ice)
Ice that is anchored to the shore or ocean bottom, typically over shallow ocean shelves at continental margins; fast ice is defined by the fact that it does not move with the winds or currents. Cryosphere Glossary NSIDC
Howell SE, Laliberté F, Kwok R, Derksen C, King J. Landfast ice thickness in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago from observations and models. The Cryosphere. 2016 Jul
Federal Register
A periodical published by the United States Government which advertizes actions or proposed actions by federal agencies. The Federal Register is available at all major libraries and federal offices. It is the federal government’s primary means of releasing information to the public.
Field
A region of space at each point of which a given physical or mathematical quantity has some definite value; for example, a gravitational field, magnetic field, or electric field; and, in meteorology, a pressure field, temperature field, etc; if the quantity specified at each point is a vector quantity, the field is said to be a vector field.
Cryosphere Glossary NSIDC
First-year ice
Floating ice of no more than one year’s growth developing from young ice; thickness from 0.3 to 2 meters (1 to 6.6 feet); characteristically level where undisturbed by pressure, but where ridges occur, they are rough and sharply angular.
Cryosphere Glossary NSIDC
Flux (oceanography)
The ocean and atmosphere interact through air-sea fluxes. These fluxes, or exchanges, are the most direct ocean climate indicator of how the ocean influences climate and weather and their extremes, and of how the atmosphere forces ocean variability. Momentum fluxes (wind stress) drive general ocean circulation, setting up the ocean gyres and current systems that can redistribute heat and properties within the ocean. Moisture fluxes (evaporation and precipitation) over the ocean are the source of water that supports life on the planet. Through the latent heat of evaporation, these moisture fluxes are linked to the air-sea fluxes of heat. Air-sea fluxes of heat are the primary mechanism by which the ocean influences the atmosphere. Ocean Climate Stations NOAA
Fossorial
A fossorial animal is one that digs, is adapted to digging and burrowing and primarily lives underground.
Fossoriality in a risky landscape: badger sett use varies with perceived wolf risk. Diserens TA, Bubnicki JW, Schutgens E, Rokx K, Kowalczyk R, Kuijper DP, Churski M.Journal of Zoology. 2020 Oct
Founder
An inpidual animal or plant that is from an original (often wild) population , that had no known relationship to any inpiduals in the population, except for its own descendants. As of 2008, this number is 7 for the Mexican wolf population.
Functional Response
Number of prey eaten per predator per unit of time.
The wolves of Isle Royale display scale‐invariant satiation and ratio‐dependent predation on moose. Jost C, Devulder G, Vucetich JA, Peterson RO, Arditi R. Journal of Animal Ecology. 2005 Sep
Functional Response, predator dependant
“The functional response of a predator describes the change in per capita kill rate to changes in prey density. This response can be influenced by predator densities, giving a predator-dependent functional response. In social carnivores which defend a territory, kill rates also depend on the individual energetic requirements of group members and their contribution tothe kill rate.”
Predator‐dependent functional response in wolves: From food limitation to surplus killing. Zimmermann B, Sand H, Wabakken P, Liberg O, Andreassen HP. Journal of Animal Ecology. 2015 Jan