1. What are the differences between the interdependent community and independent community perspectives of Frederic Clements and Henry Gleason?

2. Given that the distributions of many animals are determined by the species composition of the plant community, what might you predict about the diversity of animals in an ecotone?

3. How did Robert Whittaker’s data on plant species composition along gradients of temperature and moisture in mountains provide evidence against the idea of interdependent communities?

4. Explain why ecologists consider both species richness and species evenness when they quantify species diversity.

5. Compare and contrast log-normal abundance distributions and rank-abundance curves.

6. Why does an increase in total resources or number of added resources commonly lead to declines in species diversity?

7. Explain why we typically find more species under conditions of intermediate disturbance compared to either rare or frequent disturbance.

8. Why might you expect communities with fewer species to contain fewer trophic levels?

9. Explain the difference between density- and trait-mediated indirect effects.

10. What does it mean when a community is said to exhibit top-down control versus bottom-up control?