Characteristic Of Community

Characteristic Of Community

A community has the following characteristics.

1.SPECIES DIVERSITY: in an ecosystem ecology  each community is composed of taxonomically different species. Species diversity refers to number of different species in community both abundant and rare species. Species diversity has two components.

• Species richness: it refers different types of species and their numerical strength. Technically it refers to ratio between different species (s) and total number of species (n).
• Species evenness: it refers to a measure which qualifies as to how even species are in terms of their number.

Species diversity can be measured by using various diversity indices. the mathematical  expression based on species abundance data. species diversity can be measured separately either  as species richness or  evenness or diversity as a whole.

2.RESILIENCE AND RESISTANCE: for a community to be stable, it requires two components-resilience and resistance.

• Resilience: resilience is a ability of a community to recover after facing a disturbance or displacement.
• Resistance: it is the ability to avoid disturbance(any event that alter the structure of a community) or displacement(shifting of the community to some other place)

3. DOMINANCE: usually one community has one or more species which occur in large number. such species are called dominant and the community is often named after them.

4. DIVERSITY: the community consists of different group of plants and animals of different species, may be large or small, may belong to one life form or another but are essentially growing in a uniform environment.

5. PERIODICITY: this includes study of various life processes (respiration, growth, reproduction etc.) In the various seasons of the year in the dominant species in the community. The recurrence of these important life processes at regular intervals in a year and their manifestation in nature is called periodicity.

6. STRATIFICATION: natural forest communities possess a number of layers or stores related to the high of plant. for example ,tall trees, smaller trees, shrubs and herbaceous layers from different strata. this phenomenon in a plant community is called stratification.

7. ECOTONE AND EDGE EFFECT:

• Ecotone: each community has spatial limits or boundaries. the boundaries between communities may be very sharp. such as, boundaries between a forest and a lake or the boundary may be less sharp ,e.g., boundary between two types of forest or a forest and a grassland community. often there is some transitional area in between two communities that is known as ecotone. Where species of both adjacent communities are found. Ecotone is a marginal zone and easily recognizable.