Incise
(down-cutting): Cut down into, as a river cuts into
a flood plain terrace.
Indicator Plant: Any plant that, by its presence,
its frequency or its vigor, indicates any particular property
of the site—particularly but by no means exclusively,
of the soil (Zedaker, 1998).
Indicator Species: A species used as a gauge for
the condition of a particular habitat, community, or ecosystem
(Meffe and Carroll, 1994).
Indigenous:
Native to a specified area or region, not introduced (Zedaker,
1998).
Insectivores:
Insect-eating animals.
Invasive
exotic: Non-native plant species which is able to out-compete
native species.
Keystone
Predator: A predator that increases the diversity of
a system by selective predation or a competitively superior
species (Zedaker, 1998).
Keystone
Species: Species that determine the ability of large
numbers of other species to persist in the community. Protection
of keystone species is a priority for conservation efforts
because if a keystone species is lost from a conservation
area, numerous other species might be lost as well (Primack,
1993).
Micro-habitat:
A very small, specialized habitat, such as a clump of grass
or a space between rocks (The American Heritage Dictionary,
2000).
Mitigation: Action taken to alleviate potential adverse
effects on wetlands and fish habitat undergoing modification.
Also commonly used to mean compensation for damage done.
In this usage, in-kind mitigation is replacement of one
kind of habitat with another similar habitat (Zedaker, 1998).
Mycelia:
The mass of interwoven filamentous hyphae that forms
especially the vegetative portion of the thallus of a fungus
and is often submerged in another body (as of soil or organic
matter or the tissues of a host); also, a similar mass of
filaments formed by some bacteria, as streptomyces (Merriam-Webster,
2001).
Native Species: Indigenous species that is normally
found as part of a particular ecosystem; a species that
was present in a defined area prior to European settlement
(Zedaker, 1998).
Naturalized: (1) Alien species that have become successfully
established. (2) When a species that is not
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native
to a certain area grows, reproduces, and maintains itself
(Zedaker, 1998).
Niche: (1) The ultimate unit of the habitat, i.e. the
specific spot occupied by an individual organism. (2) By extension,
the or less specialized relationships existing between an
organism, individual or synusia, and its environment. (3)
The specific set of environmental/habitat conditions that
permit the full development and completion of the life cycle
of an organism. (4) the limits, for all important environmental
variables, within which individuals of a species can survive,
grow, and reproduce (Zedaker, 1998).
Nocturnal: Active at night.
Perennial:
A species that persists for several years (Zedaker, 1998).
Persistent
Wetland: Wetland areas which may not remain wet year round
(perennially), but retain wet or moist conditions beyond the
single rainy season as do ephemeral vernal pools or wetlands
fed by ground water or perched water.
Plant
Community: A general term for an assemblage of plant species
growing together in a particular area, habitat, or environment
(Holland and Keil, 1995).
Restoration
Ecology: The practice of intentionally altering a site
to establish a defined, indigenous, historic ecosystem. The
goal of this process is to emulate the structure, function,
diversity, and dynamics of the specified ecosystem (Society
for Ecological Restoration, 1991).
Restoration:
Return of an ecosystem to a close approximation of its condition
prior to disturbance (National Research Council, 1992).
Restoration:
A blanket term to describe all those activities that seek
to upgrade damaged land or to re-create land that has been
destroyed and to bring it back into beneficial use in a form
in which its biological potential is restored (Bradshaw and
Chadwick, 1980).
Riparian:
Of, pertaining to, situated, or dwelling on the margin
of a river or other body of water (Zedaker, 1998).
Sediment:
Fine-grain material and organic material in suspension, in
transit, or deposited by air, water, or ice on the earth’s
surface (California Coastal Commission, 1987).
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