Ecologically equivalent means same life cycle, involve in same ecological process and process rate are the same if organisms are placed in same environment.what does it means by same life cycle, involve in same ecological process and process rate are the same if organisms are placed in same environment??

Question

anonymous · Answer

This question is hard to grasp....

trancenova · Answer

Sounds like you're a little confused - i'll try and break it down for you.

So an organisms life cycle is "the series of changes in the life of an organism, including reproduction". So for example a life cycle of a person would be they start as a baby, become an adolescent then mature into an adult, other plants and animals go through other changes like that too.

Ecological process is where an organism is interacting with its environment, usually with some sort of out put. For example fungi decaying dead leaves would be an ecological process. 

Process rate is just how fast this happens, or what length of time it takes for this interaction to occur.

Soo..

"Ecologically equivalent means same life cycle, involve in same ecological process and process rate are the same if organisms are placed in same environment"

...Is saying that if something is "Ecologically equivalent" than the organism that is Ecologically equivalent to is placed in the same environment then it will "live the same" as in, has the same life cycle and will go through the same ecological processes in the same amount of time.

Does it make more sense now? :)