Keystone species: a) occur only in intertidal zones. b) play...

Name: Problem 16, Chapter 15: What Is Life? A Guide to Biology
Uploaded: 2020-06-22T02:25:20-08:00
Duration: 6 min 37 s
Channel: Josh Trinidad
Description: Keystone species: a) occur only in intertidal zones. b) play an unusually important role in determining the species composition in a habitat. c) can be removed from a habitat without any impact on the remaining species in the community. d) are primary producers and therefore usually are plants. e) are more expendable than commensal species, from a conservation perspective.

Keystone species: a) occur only in intertidal zones. b) play an unusually important role in determining the species composition in a habitat. c) can be removed from a habitat without any impact on the remaining species in the community. d) are primary producers and therefore usually are plants. e) are more expendable than commensal species, from a conservation perspective.

Keystone species:
a) occur only in intertidal zones.
b) play an unusually important role in determining the species composition in a habitat.
c) can be removed from a habitat without any impact on the remaining species in the community.
d) are primary producers and therefore usually are plants.
e) are more expendable than commensal species, from a conservation perspective.

Transcript

00:01 All right, so we're going to answer the question that asks about keystone species.

00:05 And so let's just define it really quick before we go into the actual answers here.

00:10 So from the textbook, a keystone species is a species that has an unusually large influence on the presence or absence of numerous other species in a community.

00:18 And it's also this definition is a little bit vague.

00:23 It doesn't play up the importance of keystone species as much as it should have.

00:27 But they're also going to be one of the most important aspects of a community.

00:30 Or an environment, and that they can have a lot of influence over other organisms and the environment itself.

00:41 So going into the answers here, a states that a keystone species only occurs in intertidal zones, which is not true.

00:50 Keystone species can be any species anywhere on the earth, but they usually have to occur, or they usually have to occur in certain environments, um, or sorry, they do incur in certain environments.

01:04 Um, for instance, um, a keystone species, let's say in, uh, the great barrier reef could be a, um, some, a some shark species.

01:17 While, um, let's say in the arctic, um, a different keystone species can be a, um, let's see, like a, um, some type, some, a caribou.

01:31 So those, a caboo and a shark, again, they have nothing really in common with each other, really for this example.

01:38 But they are both keystone species in that they matter a lot to their own environments or their own communities.

01:45 And so, again, a, not true.

01:48 B states that keystone species play an unusually important role in determining the species competition in a habitat, which is true.

01:57 And so they do play a really important role in their individual habitats or communities.

02:04 So i can go ahead and write down b as our most probable answer, but let's come back to it after looking at some other things too.

02:12 C states that they can be removed from a habitat without any impact on the remaining species in the community.

02:19 And so this one's going to be a really important one because there's many, many, many cases throughout the world where keystone species have been removed.

02:28 And where we have seen firsthand their importance.

02:35 One of my favorite examples, i believe, is going to be in north america where a population of wolves was removed from an environment through different mechanisms, be that hunting or pushed out by human settlements, what have you.

02:53 So i'll actually draw this on the board too, just recap a better example.

02:57 So say, for instance, we have, i'll draw wolves in red.

03:02 We have a population of three wolves, and let's say we have a population of a lot of different individual deer or elk or caribou.

03:19 These individual wolves will keep the caribou in check in that their population won't get too out...

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