OpenNESS Glossary beginning with F
F
- Final Ecosystem Service search for term
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The outcomes from ecosystems that directly lead to goods or benefits that are valued by people.
- Flow search for term
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See 'Ecosystem Service Flow'
- Framework search for term
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A structure that includes the relationship amongst a set of assumptions, concepts, and practices that establish an approach for accomplishing a stated objective or objectives.
- Functional Diversity search for term
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The value, range, and relative abundance of traits present in the organisms in an ecological community.
- Functional Group search for term
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A collection of organisms with similar functional trait attributes. Some authors use ‘Functional Type’ in the same way. Groups can be associated with similar responses to pressures and/or effects on ecosystem processes. A functional group is often referred to as a guild, especially when referring to animals, e.g. the feeding types of aquatic organisms having the same function within the trophic chain, e.g. the group (guild) of shredders or grazers.
- Functional Richness search for term
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This includes two components, which authors have used selectively or jointly to denote: a) the range of trait attributes represented in the community, i.e. the amount of niche space filled by species in the community (Mason et al. 2005); or, b) the number of functional groups or trait attributes in the community (Petchey et al., 2004).
- Functional Traits search for term
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Those characteristics (e.g. morphological, physiological etc.) of organisms that either related to the effect of organisms on community and ecosystem processes or their response to these processes and the physical environment
- Futures Thinking search for term
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Thinking about how our understandings of the past and present can be used to understand the future, using a range of approaches such as forecasts, projections, predictions and scenarios. See exploratory and normative scenarios.