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
Q-R
Random Walk (Statistics)
A mathematical object, known as a stochastic or random process, that describes a path that consists of a succession of random steps on some mathematical space. An example could be the search path within a grid of a foraging animal.
Rangelands
“The definition of “rangelands” is also variable depending on the language and culture of different countries. The term is more popular in North America and Australia, whereas other regions use terms such as natural pasture, grassland, savanna, veld, pampa, llanos, cerrado, campos, etc. The term is gaining global rec-ognition to describe those lands on which the indigenous vegetation consists predominantly of grasses, grass-like plants, forbs, shrubs, or trees tht are grazed or have the potential to be grazed or browsed, and which are used as a natural ecosys-tem for raising grazing livestock and wildlife (Allen et al. 2011). Rangelands pro-vide a broad spectrum of ecosystem goods and services (Sala et al. 2017). They are intricate social-ecological systems with a long history of co-adaptation with rumi-nant animals. Pastoralist communities and their resource management strategies have co-evolved with the inherently dynamic rangelands and their high spatial heterogeneity, biodiversity, and with climate-related spatial and temporal variability (Little 1996).”
Niamir-Fuller M, Huber-Sannwald E. Pastoralism and Achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development: A Missing Piece of the Global Puzzle. InStewardship of Future Drylands and Climate Change in the Global South 2020
Recolonization
Recovery of a species through natural movement into an area, not influenced by human intervention.
Recovery
The act or process of restoring threatened or endangered species to a non-threatened or non-endangered status.
Reintroduction
The release of a species into an area that was part of their probable historic geographic range, but from which they have declined or disappeared, for the purpose of establishing a new wild population.
Rendezvous Site
An above ground area, usually open and near water, where pups are taken when they are old enough to leave the birth den. The wolves gather there to sleep, play and eat. Wolves may move from one rendezvous site to the next until the pups are old enough to accompany the adults on their hunts and travels.
International Wolf Center Glossary
Resource dispersion hypothesis
This theory holds that food quantity and distribution is the primary cause and determinant of group size (D. W. Macdonald 1983; von Schantz 1984).
Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP)
A greenhouse gas concentration (not emissions) trajectory adopted by the IPCC.
Four RCPs were selected and defined by their total radiative forcing (cumulative measure of human emissions of GHGs from all sources expressed in Watts per square meter) pathway and level by 2100. The RCPs were chosen to represent a broad range of climate outcomes, based on a literature review, and are neither forecasts nor policy recommendations.
While each single RCP is based on an internally consistent set of socioeconomic assumptions, the four RCPs together cannot be treated as a set with consistent internal socioeconomic logic.
IPCC | Data Distribution Center
Rewilding
Restoring an area of land (large -scale) to its natural uncultivated state and protecting natural processes and core wilderness areas, providing connectivity between such areas, and protecting or reintroducing apex predators and keystone species. Used especially with reference to the reintroduction of species of wild animal that have been driven out or exterminated.
Trophic rewilding: ecological restoration of top-down trophic interactions to promote self-regulating biodiverse ecosystems; JC SVENNING, M MUNK, A SCHWEIGER – Rewilding, 2019
[HTML] Rewilding and conservation genomics: How developments in (re) colonization ecology and genomics can offer mutual benefits for understanding …
AV Stronen, L Iacolina, A Ruiz-Gonzalez – Global Ecology and …, 2019
River bifurcation
River bifurcation occurs when a river flowing in a single stream separates into two or more separate streams (called distributaries) which continue downstream. Some rivers form complex networks of distributaries, especially in their deltas. If the streams eventually merge again or empty into the same body of water, then the bifurcation forms a river island.
“River bifurcations are critical but poorly understood elements of many geomorphological systems. They are integral elements of alluvial fans, braided rivers, fluvial lowland plains, and deltas and control the partitioning of water and sediment through these systems. Bifurcations are commonly unstable but their lifespan varies greatly. In braided rivers bars and channels migrate, split and merge at annual or shorter timescales, thereby creating and abandoning bifurcations. This behaviour has been studied mainly by geomorphologists and fluid dynamicists. Bifurcations also exist during avulsion, the process of a river changing course on a floodplain or in a delta, which may take 102–103 years and has been studied mainly by sedimentologists.”
Kleinhans MG, Ferguson RI, Lane SN, Hardy RJ. Splitting rivers at their seams: bifurcations and avulsion. Earth Surface Processes and Landforms. 2013 Jan;38(1):47-61.