Why is the process of decomposition important to plant growth? What organisms are involved, and what what are they obtaining by breaking organic matter down?
What is the raw material for decomposition? What differences in plant tissues (chemistry, amount) influence rates of decomposition?
What are the steps involved during the breakdown of organic matter and eventual release of inorganic nutrients and carbon dioxide?
What climatic conditions are best for decomposition?
What is microbial immobilization, and what controls its magnitude?
How can plants potentially partition N use among species, much in the same way animals partition food resources? Are plants entirely dependent on mineralization for N supply?
Mycorrhizae are symbiotic mutualisms between what organisms? What resource or benefit is each organism getting from the other?
What are the general categories of mycorrhizae and what types of plants are associated with each type?
What organisms can convert (fix) atmospheric dinitrogen gas into biologically available forms? Why is this important to plants, both on the short term (i.e. during a growing season) as well as over the temporal development of an ecosystem (100's to 1000's of years).
How is oxygen regulated in the nodules of legumes, and why is this important to N2-fixation?
Why are N2 fixing plants thought to be potentially poor competitors?
What is the "rhizosphere," and why is it considered a hotspot of biological activity?
What is hydraulic lift?
How does the process occur?
How is hydraulic lift detected?
What are the potential ecological
impacts of hydraulic lift on the plant that does it? Have these been
tested, and if so, how?
Populations
What is a "population" in an ecological context? What are the possible origins of the individuals that make up a population?
What are the costs and benefits of sexual and clonal reproduction?
How can the spatial distribution of populations be used to infer biological processes important in controlling population growth and habitat preference?
If the recruitment rate exceeds the death rate in a population, what function best approximates its growth? Why is it unlikely this type of growth can be sustained?
If density dependent factors are operating to keep the rate of population growth in check, what function best approximates its growth? What is an example of a density dependent factor that might act to lower the rate of population growth as the population size increases? What is an example of a density independent population growth regulating factor?
Life Histories
What characteristics differentiate the flowers of wind versus animal pollinated plants? How do animal pollinated plants attract pollinators?
What is meant by a "pollination syndrome?" Why should flowers limit the type of pollinator that visits a flower?
What are the 2 main functions of fruits?
What is an elaiosome, and how is it important to seed dispersal?
How can a seed bank help maintain population growth in a variable environment?
What are the reproductive costs to plants?
What factors should influence the timing of reproductive maturity in plants? What are the tradeoffs for early or late reproductive maturity in plants?
What are "monocarpy" and "polycarpy?"
Under what kind of environmental conditions would you expect to find "r-selected" versus "K-selected" species?
Why tradeoffs in life-history characteristics exist between "stress tolerant" species and "competitive" species?
What is an interaction between 2 species in which one benefits, and the other isn't affected called?
What is a plant that is dependent on another plant for carbon and nutrients called?
Competition
Assymetric interspecific competition would eventually lead to what condition in a plant community?
What is meant by "apparent competition?"
How is competition experimentally detected both in the field and in greenhouse studies?
If two plants growing together, one with water as the growth limiting factor, and the other limited by phosphorus, what type of competition is most likely?
What is meant by "competitive response" versus "competitive effect?" How is relative competitive response measured? What is the relationship between competitve effect and competitive response?
Are competitive hierarchies among plant species within a community the same for all environmental conditions?
What is is meant by "R*," and how can it be used to predict the outcome of competition between 2 species?
How does the nature of competition change as the productivity of communities increases? Is competition more intense at higher productivity?
Herbivory
Why is the world green? Why don't terrestrial herbivores consume more of the standing crop of plant biomass?
What experimental approaches have been used to detect the effect of herbivores on plant population growth and community composition? What are the general conclusions that can be drawn from these studies?
Why are leaves the tissue most often eaten by herbivores?
What are some of the ways that plants can compensate for tissue loss to herbivores?
How can herbivores be used by plants to increase their fitness?
What requirements should be met in order to successfully use herbivores to control invasive non-native plants?
What factors determine the amount of benefit that herbivores get from plants?
Plant Defenses
Secondary chemical compounds are usually associated with defense against herbivores, but what other functions might they serve for plants?
What are examples of N-containing secondary compounds? C-based compounds?
How do secondary compounds lower rates of herbivory?
Secondary compounds that are made continuously are called what?
What hypotheses have been proposed to explain the wide range of intra- and interspecific variation in secondary chemistry among plants?
What are some examples of structural
defenses in plants?
How has the global nitrogen cycle been affected by human activities?
What are PVA models and their utility? What different types of PVA models are there, and what are their advantages and limitations?
How can density-dependence be incorporated into a transition matrix PVA model? How would you expect incorporating such a term to change model projections for a growing population? for a population on the decline?
What do survivorship curves tell us about a species' life history characteristics? What do the 3 different classes of curves mean for plant species? Is this similar or different from what is usually given for animals (if so, how so)?
In a plant's allocation of resources, into what functions (in the broadest of categories) can these resources be invested?
How can a species interaction be altered by a 3rd species?
What are the advantages of herbivores
being a specialist on one plant species?